Private Thessaloniki clinic sealed – chemotherapy administered without licence and prosecution investigation
Prosecution intervention launched against private clinic in Thessaloniki that administered chemotherapy without a licensed oncology department. The regional authority revoked the clinic's operating licence and the facility was sealed.
Sealing and prosecution investigation into private clinic in Thessaloniki
A private clinic in Thessaloniki is under prosecution investigation after, according to Dikastiko.gr, administering chemotherapy in an unlicensed oncology department. Shortly before noon, court bailiffs delivered to the clinic a decision from the Thessaloniki Regional Authority to revoke its operating licence and seal the premises.
The decision had already been announced on Monday by Thessaloniki Deputy Regional Governor Kostas Goutikos. Shortly after the decision was served, it became known that prosecution authorities had intervened to investigate the conditions and practices applied at the clinic.
Findings of the National Authority for Transparency
The case was uncovered during an inspection by the National Authority for Transparency (EAD), which established, amongst other things, the operation of an oncology department without the required licence. The department was fully equipped and was advertised on the clinic's website, where its equipment was displayed, including a biological safety cabinet for handling cytostatic and chemotherapeutic drugs.
According to the EAD, a pulmonologist with specialisation in lung oncology worked in the department without a written cooperation agreement with the clinic. The same doctor is said to have prescribed chemotherapeutic drugs from 2022 for his patients and to have participated in their administration in the unlicensed department, whilst clinic staff undertook the preparation of the drugs.
Chemotherapy administered to patients without malignancy diagnosis
One of the most serious findings concerns patients admitted for short-term hospitalisation with diagnoses that, according to inspectors, were unrelated to any form of malignancy. Nevertheless, they are said to have been administered specific chemotherapeutic drugs during their hospitalisation.
The EAD characterises these findings as evidence that inaccurate information may have been submitted to the National Health Organisation (EOPYY) in order for hospitalisations at the clinic to be reimbursed. EOPYY has already been informed to proceed with its own actions, whilst the EAD report has been transmitted to the prosecutor for investigation of any criminal liability.
Staffing shortages and non-operational intensive care unit
During the same inspection, the EAD recorded shortages in nursing staff and established that the clinic's intensive care unit was not operational.
The case prompted an immediate response from POEDIN, with its president characterising the clinic as a "phantom clinic". The Thessaloniki Medical Association clarified for its part that its remit concerns medical surgeries and not private clinics, adding however that, once it receives the detailed report from the EAD and this falls within its institutional and territorial remit, it will initiate the prescribed disciplinary procedures for any involved members.
Source: Dikastiko.gr