News

SFEE Announcement

We welcome the revelation of the fictitious prescription ring by the Hellenic Police and EOPYY officials. Over time, SFEE has been pressing the State to update its control mechanisms and extend controls to all participants in the creation of demand and consumption of all kinds of health operations, including, of course, the prescription of medicines.

It is imperative that they are immediately identified and excluded from participation in the health system, but also that those who drain its already inadequate resources are punished by example and not that it takes more than 4 years to reveal such vile practices.

It is an undeniable fact that such frauds are to the detriment of EOPYY, but it should be known that the financial burden resulting from them, at least as far as the medicine is concerned, is paid by pharmaceutical companies through clawback, since the State’s contribution to pharmaceutical expenditure is specific, and is determined by a closed budget.

However, it is also a fact that such practices exacerbate the already suffocating environment of underfunding public spending on medicine and contribute to depriving Greek patients of new, innovative treatments whose entry into the country, under the current conditions, is not sustainable.

It would be desirable for the Ministry of Health to decide to reduce the mandatory refunds of companies by 3.5 million euros (equal to the estimated amount of fraud) for 2024, even for symbolic reasons, since this expenditure resulted from the gaps in the system and is not a product of actual consumption. Besides, through compulsory refunds, pharmaceutical companies finance pharmaceutical expenditure with more than 3 billion euros.