The inconvenience that people suffer when they have to deal with the State and especially with the Social Security Office is unbelievable. In many cases this effort turns into an odyssey. The case of a 52-year-old family man is very typical. Man fights cancer with boldness and incredible courage, but the bureaucracy bends him. He actually defeated cancer, but the bureaucracy is undefeated. He decided to turn to “P” to narrate his adventure, hoping that the authorities will raise awareness and take measures so that another patient does not have to suffer the same suffering.
Christos Dimitropoulos, father of two children aged 13 and 16, is disappointed with the situation that prevails mainly in Social Security. He has been working in Cyprus since September 2002 and, as he states, made the mistake of getting sick this year. By the time he was diagnosed with kidney cancer he had never had any health problems. Gradually, he tried to avoid abuse, did not smoke, did not drink, avoided certain foods, and swam daily, even in winter. His sick leave began on July 8, 2020, and Social Security received his sick leave application from the company he worked for on August 4. He spent a period in the hospitals of Cyprus (Paphos, Limassol and Nicosia) almost all summer before starting treatment at the Oncology Bank of Cyprus, resulting in, among other things, losing 25 kg of weight. He warmly thanks all the staff of the health system who treated him flawlessly despite the pandemic and, as he says, takes off his hat to these people for what they do.
The adventure
In early September, he received a letter from Social Security stating that he had to provide a certificate of attendance for his son, which he had to present in person. Due to the measures for the pandemic, a queue of 40 people was formed outside the Paphos Social Insurance, who were each waiting for various reasons to be served, as a result of which everyone waited in the sun for about an hour and a half. When it was finally his turn he asked the clerk if the technology had advanced why he had to go the document himself and be exposed to the sun for so long while his doctor forbade him and if he knew when he would receive the sickness benefit. In the first question he answered that this is always done so as not to lose a document and in the second that the month of May 2020 has not been examined yet. At the end of October the Cancer Association sent a letter to the Social Insurance with which it clarified the situation. and asked if they could expedite the examination of his case because his financial situation had begun to be very difficult. As of January 5, 2021, he has not yet received the sickness benefit from Social Security and they also did not even bother to respond to the letter from the Cancer Association. Mr. Dimitropoulos understands and understands, as he states, that with the situation of the pandemic they have thrown all the attention in this field but this does not mean that the working citizens who got sick should be left to their fate.
Fortunately, he adds, the bank where he pays his home loan has shown understanding and extended the installment plan so that his family can stand on its own two feet. From the beginning of December, Christos Dimitropoulos returned to his workplace thanks, as he notes, to the leaps that science has made in medicine. The treatment he does is called immunotherapy, which strengthens the immune system and so the body itself attacks the tumor with the result that after three months the tumor shrinks by 25 percent and dies completely. Mr. Dimitropoulos's conclusion is that cancer can be defeated, but bureaucracy is unfortunately an incurable disease.
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