Understaffing is causing bullying and abuse at Limassol hospital, Pasyno, the union of the public nurses, alleged during a half-hour work stoppage on Monday morning.
Panayiotis Geogiou, spokesman for the union, said that the strike was kept short as it was meant to publicise the issue and not cause problems for patients.
He said nurses have informed the union that hospital administrators threaten to change their shifts or move them to another ward if they refuse to work overtime or fill in for other staff who are sick or on leave.
“We have a lot of incidents and the threats are that they may be moved to another ward, they may have a problem with their evaluation and their licence,” Georgiou said.
“This is unacceptable, we can’t tolerate it, it takes us back to mediaeval labour.”
When the nurses went to talk about the problems with the administration, they received threats because they were involved with the union, he added.
“If the organisation of state health services (Okypy) and the ministry do not take the matter seriously and make recommendations to the hospital administrations, then we will move on with more vigorous measures,” he added.
Georgiou said there is a 30 per cent understaffing, which is increased because of the holiday period.
The unions prepared a staffing study and gave it to the ministry of health a long time ago, and have asked to sit down and discuss it, he stressed.
Okypy condemned the strike and said in addition to people taking their annual leave there is a large number of personnel on sick leave. Arranging for holidays and shifts is an internal matter of each hospital, the organisation said.