Unqualified doctors performing medical procedures, centers offering illegal intravenous treatments, and laboratories operating inside facilities without designated scientific supervisors. These are among the issues identified by the National Transparency Authority and the algorithm behind the MedWatch application, which “went red” for 231 medical facilities in Attica.
Within five days, the Health Ministry’s digital platform managed to uncover issues that the ministry’s inspection mechanisms and the Athens Medical Association had failed to identify in previous years.
The death of Giorgos Mazonakis inside a medical office in Kolonaki prompted the state apparatus to take action, as people accused of offering wellness and longevity treatments had until now been operating unchecked.
Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis sought to distance himself from responsibility for the situation during the years he has served at the ministry.
Among the findings were a medical office run by a clinical pathologist containing illegal medical preparations without receipts, injectable products accompanied by receipts from a pharmacy in Germany, a medical office equipped with colonic hydrotherapy machines, devices for removing visceral fat, and a facility offering quantum biofeedback to combat stress, run by a molecular biologist for the price €600.
Chaos in the healthcare sector
Medical offices and centers like this one are thriving, contributing to what the health minister acknowledged as chaos in the healthcare sector, which he should at least have worked to contain.
“The priority is to complete the inspections now, initially, so that some order can begin to be restored in something you are saying — and it is true — was chaotic in this sector.”
The 231 facilities classified as “red” include approximately 50 medical offices, seven group practices, 12 private clinics and 160 non-medical entities.
The system does not apply exclusively to doctors, medical offices and private clinics. Businesses that are not medical facilities are also being monitored, while as of today MedWatch is beginning to “scan” similar cases in Thessaloniki.
Georgiadis also effectively announced that Maria Karystianou’s medical office would be inspected.
“If the algorithm, and I assume it will, picks up on these things about quantum medicine and biofeedback for children and the other things she says, these are things she herself advertises; the algorithm normally picks them up. If the algorithm says, ‘Inspect Karystianou’s office,’ we will go to Karystianou’s office, just as we will go to everyone else’s. Quantum medicine is a scam.”
Wellness and longevity centers have now come under scrutiny by the authorities, and inspections are expected to continue throughout the coming period. The initial findings from the inspections carried out by the National Transparency Authority will be forwarded to the prosecutor.
