The private clinic that carried out chemotherapy without a licence is being sealed today, following a decision signed yesterday (28/9) by Thessaloniki deputy regional governor Kostas Gioutikas, which a court bailiff will serve today.

The clinic, located on a main road in eastern Thessaloniki, was inspected by the competent authorities following a complaint, which found that an oncology department was operating illegally. The National Transparency Authority (EAD) recommended the permanent cessation of the clinic’s operation and the revocation of its licence.

According to the official announcement from the EAD, patients admitted to the clinic had diagnoses unrelated to cancer, yet chemotherapy drugs were administered during their stay. The EAD says this points to the submission of inaccurate information to the National Organisation for the Provision of Healthcare Services (EOPYY) in order to obtain reimbursement for the clinic’s hospitalisations.

The oncology department operated with a single doctor, a pulmonologist specialising in lung oncology, to whom the clinic had given office space but with whom it had no written contract. According to the EAD, the clinic had posted a video on its website ‘showing that an oncology department is operating and has the necessary equipment (a biological safety cabinet for handling cytostatic/chemotherapy drugs), even though it did not have the required legal licensing, as the clinic’s current operating licence does not include an Oncology Department’.

‘Doctor jointly responsible for the unlawful operation of the oncology department’

‘The private doctor, a pulmonologist specialising in lung oncology, under whose supervision the oncology department operated unlawfully, had been prescribing chemotherapy drugs for his patients since 2022 from the clinic’s consulting room, and would then oversee their administration in the clinic’s “oncology department”, while the clinic’s staff took care of their preparation. The doctor is jointly responsible for the unlawful operation of the oncology department, since not only is the department not provided for in the clinic’s operating licence, but providing services in an unlicensed space is contrary to the doctor’s scientific and ethical responsibility, and he had no written contract with the clinic setting out the terms and conditions of their cooperation,’ the National Transparency Authority states.

According to the inspectors, ‘a sample of the above doctor’s patients were admitted to the clinic on the orders of another doctor at the clinic for short stays, with diagnoses that did not involve any form of malignancy, while specific chemotherapy drugs were administered during that stay. The above constitutes evidence of the submission of inaccurate information to EOPYY for the reimbursement of the clinic’s hospitalisations.’

No intensive care unit

In the findings forwarded to the prosecutor, the National Transparency Authority notes that the clinic did not employ its doctors, including the scientific heads of departments, as salaried staff, and had not signed written contracts with the clinic’s other doctors, contrary to current legislation.

It also did not employ a sufficient number of nursing staff and had no staff at all in required specialisms (for example a radiologist, and so on), while it had no intensive care unit (ICU) in operation, which the law makes mandatory according to the capacity stated in its establishment and operating licence.

Findings sent to the prosecutor

The EAD’s inspection report was forwarded to the Athens Court of Appeal Prosecutor to determine any criminal liability, to the National Organisation for the Provision of Healthcare Services (EOPYY) for any action it may take regarding the accuracy of the information the clinic submitted in order to be reimbursed for the hospitalisation of specific patients, and to the relevant medical association to determine any disciplinary liability.

A chain of private clinics

The owner of the clinic being sealed today also owns other clinics, both in Thessaloniki and in other cities such as Larissa and Athens, having built up substantial activity in the healthcare sector in recent years, buying a number of clinics, even through auction procedures.

Notably, last week Deputy Regional Governor Gioutikas signed the closure of another clinic belonging to the same owner, which, according to the owning company’s website, operated various practices, specifically two general medicine, one oncology and one nephrology, with a dialysis unit.

‘Close it, in case anyone still has time to be saved’

The reviews and ratings the clinic being sealed today has received in search engine results are striking.

One woman wrote three months ago that she was not allowed to visit her bedridden relative every day, and that one day she found him unkempt and soiled with vomit.

‘The worst possible thing for a bedridden person who cannot communicate. Fortunately, our experience lasted only a few days. They ban daily visits for their own reasons, even for a helpless person who cannot communicate. I understand that these people need special care and that the staff cannot be by one person’s side the whole time, but quite simply they could decline to admit them. Our loved one was unkempt when we went to see him and soiled with vomit… and in the end he pulled out the oxygen he was supposed to be wearing himself, was left without it, and when they found him in the morning he was taken to hospital… For milder cases they may do a good job, but in our case it was a huge mistake to trust them,’ the woman wrote.

A man wrote that he took his father to the clinic after he had suffered strokes, saying that they carried out tests on him constantly. ‘Close it in case anyone still has time to be saved,’ he wrote.

‘He lasted two months. His life was nearly at an end and they were running tests for no reason, and these could not be recorded because his social security number (AMKA) had already been committed. These people are the finest of professionals when it comes to grabbing money. Everything else, run to a hospital, because we cannot handle this or that, or the kidneys. Close it in case anyone still has time to be saved. But what is there to close? The guaranteed daily earnings and the winning formula? My only wish is that God repays you for what you do to those who trust you out of need, their dearest loved one,’ he said in his review.

Another woman described the whole state of the clinic as unacceptable, saying they were asked to prepay for a bed for her grandfather’s stay, and that when her relative died and they went to collect his belongings, they were given those of another patient who had also died.

‘Unacceptable! We took my grandfather there spotless and with all his medication (only because he needed mechanical support and a nurse around the clock) and what we found was utterly disappointing! The room was very narrow, with windows high up on the wall, so he could not see outside! Besides, all you could see from the window was the wall of an apartment block! The other laughable thing is that you have to book a bed and prepay for it without first being invited to see it! Because they knew that if we had seen it we obviously would not have chosen it! But just how ridiculous they are showed the very next day! When we went to collect grandfather’s belongings (as sadly he passed away within a few hours) they gave us the belongings of another deceased patient! A day later and they had already lost his things and mixed them up with another patient’s! Nowhere near acceptable!’

‘Stay away from this clinic’ wrote a woman who took her father, who had mobility problems due to Parkinson’s, and who says she later collected him ‘with two infections, endless bedsores and dehydrated’. She wrote that at the hospital he was transferred to, she was told that ‘the man had been completely neglected’. She also added: ‘All they care about is taking money. They charge for tests they never showed us and physiotherapy they never gave him.’ ‘We took in a man with only mobility problems and right now he is fighting for his life in hospital,’ said the woman, who posted her review eight months ago.