Serious concerns over patient safety, staff protection and the future of mental health services in Cyprus have been raised once again, as multiple branches of PASYDY sound the alarm over the deteriorating conditions at Athalassa Mental Health Hospital.

According to the PASYDY Mental Health Nursing Staff Branch, recent technical assessments have deemed several wards at Athalassa Hospital unfit for use, concluding that they must be demolished. The union is calling on the State, the Ministry of Health and the State Health Services Organisation (OKYpY) to take immediate action to ensure the safety and dignity of patients, as well as the protection of staff working under what it describes as “extremely adverse conditions”.

“For us, the employees of Athalassa Hospital, the situation has reached its absolute limits,” the branch said in a statement, warning that the hospital is now “at ground zero”. It stressed that authorities must either take decisive action to implement meaningful changes or accept responsibility for leaving patients and staff in what it called a “tragic” situation.

The nursing branch also highlighted what it described as a serious failure in long-term planning and public spending. After years of pressure from staff representatives, a decision was taken to renovate two hospital wards at a cost of several million euros. Yet, just eight years later, those same wards have now also been judged unsuitable for use.

Union representatives say this raises major questions about the management of public funds and the lack of a coherent, long-term strategy for the development of mental health services in Cyprus.

While acknowledging some progress, they pointed to delays that continue to undermine confidence. One year ago, three new, state-of-the-art buildings were delivered, marking the completion of Phase A of the new Athalassa Hospital project. At the official inauguration, the President of the Republic announced that Phase B — involving the construction of the new hospital facilities — would begin immediately.

However, a year on, there has been no official update, timetable or confirmation on when Phase B will start or be completed.

In a separate but strongly worded intervention, the PASYDY branches of Specialist Psychologists and Physiotherapists–Occupational Therapists also condemned what they called the “continued and unjustified inertia of the State”, warning that the situation at Athalassa Hospital has reached a “complete functional, therapeutic and professional deadlock”.

Mental health professionals say they have been working for years in buildings that fail to meet even basic standards of safety, hygiene and functionality. This, they argue, constitutes a serious breach of the employer’s obligations to staff, as well as a violation of patients’ fundamental rights to safe and dignified care.

They also pointed to the lack of secure spaces for therapeutic interventions, the inability to implement basic safety protocols and the daily exposure of staff to hazardous working conditions.

“These conditions cannot be considered ‘normality’,” the statement stressed, adding that the crisis did not emerge overnight but is the result of chronic delays and unfulfilled commitments by successive authorities.

As pressure mounts from across the mental health sector, unions are demanding immediate clarity, concrete timelines and decisive political action to prevent further deterioration at one of Cyprus’s most critical healthcare institutions.