Work has begun on implementing instructions issued several days ago by Health Minister Neophytos Charalambides to map medical centres in Cyprus where high-risk interventional treatments are carried out, Cyprus News Agency (CNA) has learned.
Ministry of Health sources said the method for carrying out the mapping, and who will be responsible for it, will be determined through internal meetings currently under way at the ministry. The same sources said the process was expected to produce results before long, and that the ministry is in contact and coordination with the Cyprus Medical Association (CMA) wherever necessary.
Under the law, responsibility for monitoring private hospitals lies with the Commissioner for Private Hospitals at the Ministry of Health, while the CMA issues practising licences to doctors in Cyprus based on documents issued by the ministry's Medical Council, after reviewing the certificates submitted by each doctor seeking to practise in the country.
CMA alerts its members
Meanwhile, the CMA has been sending notices to its members, asking them to help identify people practising medicine without a licence, as well as poor practices more broadly.
Under existing legislation, the CMA refers cases it identifies as requiring investigation to the relevant state services and to police, within the scope of its responsibilities.
CNA understands that the CMA will wait for updates from the ministry on any issues falling within its remit that arise during the mapping process, so that it can pursue the appropriate procedures.
According to the same information, following its relatively recent administrative restructuring, the CMA is now pursuing implementation of its Council's decisions more systematically, applying measures aimed at addressing individual cases that periodically damage the image of the medical profession in Cyprus.
The CMA had also run an awareness campaign in 2025, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health, on cosmetic medical procedures carried out by practitioners without a medical qualification or a licence to practise medicine.
The CMA is also calling on the public to submit official, specific complaints about such cases, so that cases can be properly substantiated. CNA understands that a number of cases referred to the CMA's disciplinary bodies have previously come to nothing, after the necessary evidence was ultimately lacking.
The CMA Council is expected to examine, at its regular meeting on 8 October, legal questions relating to the handling of such cases, institutional and procedural issues concerning coordination with services and agencies for investigation purposes, and the planning of measures to protect patients.
Source: CNA
