Galery

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Pharmacist from Lavro is the main suspect in the making up of false prescriptions for "free drugs", which according to the initial information cost the country 36 thousand euro. In the fraud has also taken part a local doctor who prescribed the unnecessary drugs, on 28 prescription books. The patent medicines were from the list of the health insurance funds and the pharmacist and the doctor have taken the amounts from the prescribed medicinal products. In order not to be implicated in the fraud the charlatans sacked the unnecessary medicines in a pit cave near the village which is about 100 meters deep.
The offense was discovered by accident by professional speleologists who discovered piles of black plastic bags of drugs floating in the bottom of a pit cave. The specialist in the study of caves Thanos Ksantopoulos and his group in collaboration with the local authorities and a monitoring committee from the National Health Insurance Fund launched a campaign to clear a cave pit. According to latest information from many of the medicinal products in the cave were outside with depressurised packages and the exact amount of patent medicines thrown inside is not known. Thanos Ksantopoulos stresses that in Greece, especially the caves near the settlements are used as dumps. This seriously jeopardizes the public health, environment and quality of drinking water in the areas around them. He urges the Government to take stronger measures for the protect of natural sites and to strengthen the penalties associated with environmental pollution.
The offender pharmacist was suspected also by his colleagues who filed a complaint to the district police office for illegal trade of drugs. President of the Association of Pharmacists in Athens Costas Lurados commented on the case before the Athens News Agency that the pharmacist and the physician from Lavro were family related and have invented the fraud together. He explained that in order to make such a fraud with drugs in the works should also participate the health insurance patients themselves. However, in many cases patients do not even know that their prescription books were being prescribed drugs which they do not receive. These victims are most often elderly people, who trust the local doctors and pharmacists who do not question the judgment of the professionals and do not check thoroughly the prescriptions written down. "Such cases of course are rare and are subject to investigation," said Costas Lurados reprehensibly.
According to data presented by the Ministry of Employment and Social Security from the black market sale of drugs, the country loses around 800 million euro per year. Following the strengthening of the control measures at the beginning of the year, the cost for the payment of free medicines of one of the health insurance funds decreased by 25.8% for June 2010 as compared to the same period last year. The Ministry reported that as a result of the increased controls for about a month the country has saved a total of about 78 million euro from the payment of free medicines. The goal of the government is by the end of this year to save 800 million euro only from the black market drug trade control.