Paphos Life

Lawyer arrested for filming Paphos General ER

Paphos police have arrested a 29-year-old lawyer after she posted a video
that she took of the Paphos General Hospital’s ER unit on a social media
platform on February 21.

Police are investigating privacy law violations after the two nurses filed
complaints with the police claiming that they had been filmed while at work
without their consent.

The 9-minute video which contains criticism aimed at medical staff in the
Paphos General Hospital’s ER was posted on the lawyer’s social media
account before being posted on on-line news sites.

The video shows the ER totally absent of medical staff.

read more here.. http://in-cyprus.com/lawyer-arrested-fo ... eneral-er/

The General needs seriously looking into, only last week a friend passed away and his story is horrendous. Sad to say the General looks in need of a serious update to the building and to it's staff and management.

Reading the comments on the original post from Dominic on Paphos Life Home page tells you all.... a mess....
needs really tidying up
Max

Jim, the thread referred to by Max is in the Paphos News forum section....

Dominic posted all this a few days ago . Quite a number of people commented on it..


Trev..

Sorry but I thought this should be seen again manly due to our friend who I will be attending his funeral tomorrow, I will not post what happened while he was in the General but like this Lawyer it was awful treatment.

I do not post here very often as you can see, I do not look in other forums (that often now) only this one the General area.

OK by you all I hope.

I have often remarked on the money which is being spent on Paphos ,must be millions and millions,yet the General Hospital seems devoid of much investment,where do the priorities lie?

I did actually move this to the news section when it was posted, but moved it back again as soon as I had done so, because of the final paragraph. It wasn't just a generic news story any more.

So sorry to hear about your friend, how awful.

I watched the video on Facebook as it was being streamed live. Whilst these issues need to be highlighted, I was horrified that she was filming staff (who just appeared to be trying to answer the phones to help), all of the patients inside and in the waiting room and even a woman who was lying on a bed in one of the consulting rooms. Whatever the criticism, a live film like this was totally the wrong way to go about it. She could have edited it first before posting and obscuring the faces of people who may not have wanted their faces live streamed on social media. Especially the poor lady on the bed in the cubicle.

Jeanne

Jeanne good morning.

While I agree with your points the lady Lawyer was panicking as our friends were just looking for help and a doctor or nurse that was unfortunatly not available at that time, there is a real problem at the General, nurses seem to have no enthusiasm or care for patients, and why no doctor on the premises when needed, there is a real problem at the Hospital one we should all who have to use it be very concerned about never mind spending millions €'s on "Year of culture".

It's just terrible that the current state of anarchy at the Paphos General is allowed to continue. It has been hit and miss there for several years now. Seems a combination of factors. It's a comparitively modern structure but needs money spending on it as it is so overcrowded and poorly maintained. There isn't adiquate space now to accommodate the numbers of patients who use it. It is reportedly under staffed, but it seems to me that the problem is probably exacerbated by the very strong and unyielding attitude of the unions, both doctors and nurses who are averse to any changes. Stories of nurses sleeping on night duty and expecting patients relatives, regardless of their age and medical fitness to look after their relatives 24/7 is awful and causing much unnecessary suffering. A friend of mine herself a qualified retired nurse had to endure the appalling treatment and uncaring attitude that the nurses at the General showed for her dying husband. This despite her own efforts to help him and to speak to the doctor in charge of the ward, but the worse thing for me is the arrest of the young lawyer taking a video at the time she was there in A&E. this video should have been used by the medical authorities at the General and the Health Ministry to do something about it. Dee

It's just terrible that the current state of anarchy at the Paphos General is allowed to continue. It has been hit and miss there for several years now. Seems a combination of factors. It's a comparitively modern structure but needs money spending on it as it is so overcrowded and poorly maintained. There isn't adiquate space now to accommodate the numbers of patients who use it. It is reportedly under staffed, but it seems to me that the problem is probably exacerbated by the very strong and unyielding attitude of the unions, both doctors and nurses who are averse to any changes. Stories of nurses sleeping on night duty and expecting patients relatives, regardless of their age and medical fitness to look after their relatives 24/7 is awful and causing much unnecessary suffering. A friend of mine herself a qualified retired nurse had to endure the appalling treatment and uncaring attitude that the nurses at the General showed for her dying husband. This despite her own efforts to help him and to speak to the doctor in charge of the ward, but the worse thing for me is the arrest of the young lawyer taking a video at the time she was there in A&E. this video should have been used by the medical authorities at the General and the Health Ministry to do something about it. Dee

Agreed, Dee - to see it as a real issue and learn from it would have been the ideal way to move forward. Sadly, even if they did, the authorities will never admit to it...

The lady who was arrested is a lawyer and knew what she was doing. You can't pixellate faces on a live stream, but I believe this has now been done on the footage they posted.

It still looks like she is going to be prosecuted, but I believe the government are now looking at the issues at the hospital.

If that is correct then well done to her for publicising the situation. She may end up paying a price for doing it but, hopefully, we may all benefit from her actions.

Having been to hospitals in Nicosia,Limassol and Paphos it is hard to believe how badly run down Paphos is against the other two. All 3 are busy so that cannot be an excuse.

Allesley I am indeed very sorry for the situation your friends found themselves in and the unfortunate death - my condolences.
However I am in complete agreement with Lofus-Jan (Jeanne) and Hudswell regarding the conduct of the lady lawyer it was totally reprehensible to film as she did without thought for the other patients privacy and discomfort. There are and were other ways she could have made her concerns known but social media is not one of them. As a former member of the legal profession had I done what this lady did I would have been looking for a new job.

I find the the use of social media so often totally irresponsible and I give a recent example. On Wednesday night February 9th 2017 Two of my friends were involved in a very nasty road traffic accident on the main road from Paphos to Coral Bay (intoxicated and speeding driver of other vehicle concerned) and someone near by who knew the couple posted on her facebook page details of this accident stating, amongst other things, they had been taken to hospital in Nicosia suffering from brain and internal injuries. Neither of these statements were true but the worst aspect was the fact that neither of their families in the UK had been informed of the accident. Fortunately there were other people who persuaded this person to take the posting or whatever it is called down.

The couple had in fact been taken to Paphos General hospital to the Emergency Unit and both have said they could not fault the treatment they received (food was not very good but they were not that hungry). The husband suffered a broken leg and ankle which necessitated a 7 hour operation the following day (no brain or internal injuries) and the wife had very nasty bruising on most of her body. Both are now discharged from hospital with follow up appointments and maintain their treatment was very good So there is one case at least where the hospital delivered. However can you imagine the distress which could have been caused to their respective families had they seen that totally inaccurate and unnecessary facebook message.

I can report that the British Consul contacted the families concerned and also the two people themselves the next day. Dominic did draw attention to this accident as reported in the press in the News Section and I commented accordingly at the time.

I totally agree the Paphos General is to say the least shabby and very chaotic at times but there are ways in dealing with complaints regarding this and filming people waiting treatment is not one of them. The lady is a lawyer (presumably Cypriot - and that is not meant as a criticism) so should know her way around the methods at her disposal for dealing with unsatisfactory treatment.

Rita

Well said, Rita!

Cheers- AL

Rita, I rarely disagree with your posts, and in the main I'm still not. I just go back to the situation which I posted here, of my neighbour, whose treatment was so not good. When I posted this situation here, several people suggested videoing the night staff sleeping on the cardiology ward. For various reasons which I won't detail here, this did not happen, and was probably for the best. But it would have been incontrovertible evidence of what is happening in the wards at the General, and this was the cardiology ward where my friend had already suffered 3 cardiac arrests. As it was, even when he had his final arrest it took staff several minutes to respond, and I'm not talking two or three, more like nine or ten, which was of course too late. There was no doctor available for almost an hour, indeed, the death certificate certified a time almost an hour after he had actually died.

In these circumstances I feel an unpublished video of the night staff sleeping whilst my neighbour and her sister looked after their loved one would have been useful in reinforcing the problems to the Director of Services. I feel the lawyer could have been more discreet with her video and taken it straight to the hospital supremo, rather than publishing it world wide. Much more effective.

For anyone believing that all is wonderful and hunky dory in Paphos General I suggest that they simply wander around the hospital, any hour of the day or night. I'd be surprised if anyone stopped them or questioned their right to be there. I guarantee that things they would see would be eye-opening at the least. Nursing here is not vocational, its money orientated, simply. Compassion does not walk the halls of the Paphos General.

Double post, deleted

I hear your pain, smudger.....and also recall your questions at the time your neighbour was in the hospital.
The video as such can have only helped to publish the issue because by all accounts - there really is a major problem at Paphos General that is not being felt at Limassol or Nicosia hospitals so one can only assume that something is not being handled well at Paphos.

Perhaps not the best way to do it but hopefully, this lawyer already knew the boundaries before she took it. Or, she was so incensed by what she saw that she felt she had no option.

I haven't seen the video - so it's difficult to comment on any other aspects of it.