Social

State health services organisation (Okypy) will turn over the old Larnaca hospital to the municipality in September 2024, mayor Andreas Vyras announced on Thursday.

The hospital is currently owned by the state, but will now be given to the municipality, which will lease it out to house several other civil services.

Vyras said the municipality was informed by Okypy that problems with a wing on second floor of the new hospital have been solved.

The services currently offered at the old hospital will move now to the new one.

“According to the information, the contractor has taken over the construction site and preliminary procedures for the preparation of the second floor have already started,” Vyras said.

“At the end of August, early September, it is estimated that the building of the old hospital will be handed over to the Larnaca municipality.”

The mayor added that they will monitor the works of Okypy, and that the municipality hopes to begin works for restoration of the old hospital in March or April 2025.

Things are moving somewhat slowly in Cyprus, and the concept of Social Enterprise is still at an early stage.

Even though all those components required for developing a social enterprise and social economy ecosystem, such as altruism and a sense of solidarity, are pervasive in society.

All this is recorded in the research conducted by the EC on social enterprises and their ecosystems in Europe published in 2020.

It specifically states that the sector in our country is underdeveloped and extremely small, as it consists of approximately 190 entities while pointing out the absence of a competent, relevant legal framework.

Nonetheless, in Cyprus, the process of forming the competent legislative framework governing the operation of Social Enterprises is underway and hopefully finalised within 2023.

Given this discussion, it is particularly important to point out the need to create an environment that will favour, through specific tax and other incentives, the attraction of interest in creating SEs in Cyprus.

The relevant operating regulations should be understandable and applicable, and the incentives granted should be economically attractive (business oriented), so the ecosystem of social entrepreneurship in Cyprus can be fully developed on the right basis even if its specifications at this stage are not completely consistent with the Cypriot reality.

Picture this. Your out of office auto-responder is on. Your laptop is closed. You’re ready to step into your PTO completely present, and the only thing on your to-do list is to enjoy the holidays. Sounds like a dream, right?

But then, the nightmare begins. A client has an emergency, a  coworker has an urgent question, and your phone vibrates with a Slack message. Suddenly, you realize you didn’t finish that one thing on your list. You close your eyes, and take a deep breath. Out comes your laptop as your dreams of peaceful PTO vanish into thin air.

Fortunately, this doesn’t have to be your reality. To truly unplug during the holidays without feeling overwhelmed, it just takes a little preparation. The best time to start preparing is a few weeks before you plan to put up your out-of-office message and disconnect. Then, follow this checklist.