On 4th of October, anti-mafia teams entered the Hematological Hospital "John Paul" in Sofia and "St. Mina" in Blagoevgrad because of suspicion for abuse of medicines for treatmenet of cancer patients. Investigators checked how many sick people were admiitted to the hopitals, how many medicines were administered for the day and how many were actually used.
The investigators have gathered evidence that the group involved in abuse with cancer drugs has been operating at least since the spring of 2017. The main scheme they worked on was through delivery of requested quantities of medication for infusions of real patients in the two hospitals.
In a briefing in the afternoon o 5th of October, the Specialised Prosecutor’s office revealed information on the investigation.
During the searches in the medical establishments, "substitution drugs" have been found and they were given for analysis of the chemical composition and content as they were not among the authorized for use in our country.
Lidiya Manolova, Supervising Prosecutor: The doubts are that they are not original medicines, but medicines that are acquired in a different way.
Original medicines that were not administered to patients were handed over to an intermediary who delivered them to a company that exports them as an official re-export.
The detainees who are about to be accused, include the manager of the private hematology hospital "John Paul", another doctor from this hospital and the pharmacist who ran the pharmacy at the St. Mina Hospital in the city of Blagoevgrad.
At this stage, the Prosecutor's Office refrained from announcing the names of the people detained. The others were intermediaries in the scheme. It turned out that the suspects worked on two drug trading schemes. Unfortunately, some of the most inhumane.
Lidiya Manolova, Supervising Prosecutor: We have found that medicines were not infused to people in need of cancer treatment, but the medicines were prescribed to them. We have also found that the people have not visited the hospital at all and nothing has been infused to them.
Ivan Geshev, Deputy Chief Prosecutor: All this is a trade in people's lives. The result of this is that the Health Insurance Fund is siphoned off, and secondly, something like traders in death, trading the future of people, who do not receive life-saving medication.
Instead of the patients, the medicines went to re-export companies with countries in Western Europe, where these drugs are much more expensive, and the doctors who did this, have enriched themselves,the prosecuor says. The second scheme is also quite unpleasant - expensive drugs that would surely have helped people are replaced with cheaper drugs, which, on top of everything, are of unexplained origin and content. The prosecutor's office is currently clarifying this. Again, patients have been damaged, and doctors have enriched themselves.
Source: BNT
