Galery

1

Pharmacists in Greece warned that as of next year they would no longer provide free medicines prescribed by health insurance funds in the country. The funds owe them more than 400 million euro for medicines prescribed to patients, but who are not covered by health insurance funds in recent months. The association of Greek pharmacists decided at a general meeting of its members that it has no choice and it will try to pressure the funds by not prescribing any free medications.

Active strike actions will begin on 1 January 2012 and will last until the payment of at least part of the accumulated government debts starts. Pharmacists demand the drawing up of a repayment programme as provided in the Greek and European legislation. In addition, they insist on active government intervention in order to find a solution to the issues of market liquidity and the lack of available funds for new orders. Pharmaceutical suppliers have suspended giving medicines on credit, which is further hindering the functioning of pharmacies. Many pharmacists have to take private loans from banks to be able to pay the due bills to suppliers and other creditors, because health funds have frozen the payments of their obligations to the private sector.

"Pharmacies in the country are currently experiencing an extremely difficult period and economic difficulties threaten to ruin our sector," said Theodoros Abazoglu, chairman of the Association of Greek pharmacists. He is clear that the organization will not allow the debts to continue to accumulate and one of the "incentives" will be the consecutive strikes planned by pharmacists. "Further reduction of our revenue is required in a way that is taking us to a certain collapse. We will not allow it," said Abadzoglu. The Association urges the government to provide for the social nature of pharmaceutical services, which is not currently an easy task.

Whatever the demands of pharmacists, however, Greece is still far from stabilizing its domestic finances and the government's general policy is to pay almost none of its obligations to the private sector. At the same time, health insurance funds and social funds also suffer from debt restructuring and in a period of serious economic crisis, they are likely to lose a considerable portion of their stocks. The funds are holding a substantial package of Greek government bonds and they will record large losses after the 50% reduction of their face value. According to initial estimates, social funds will lose around 11.7 billion euro due to the private sector involvement in the Greek external debt haircut. So far, the government argues that the losses will be covered by budget funds, but it seems that for the moment there are no such funds until the new contract for financial assistance with Europe is signed.