Μake us preferred on Google In the Greece of 2026, the healthcare system appears to be ailing. The public has been deluged with revelations of private practices operating medical equipment without a licence, of doctors with no specialist training performing high-risk procedures, and of clinics offering cancer patients treatments of dubious merit. Citizens, meanwhile, look on in bewilderment as state officials struggle to answer two perfectly reasonable questions: does any meaningful oversight exist at all, and how safe can patients really feel? The first findings of the MedWatch report offer little comfort.
Roughly ten days ago, Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis unveiled MedWatch, a new platform with an accompanying mobile app. Powered by artificial intelligence, it is designed to systematically monitor the online presence and advertising of every private healthcare provider in the country, flagging “suspect” practices and doctors who promise patients miracle cures. Through the app, members of the public can check a practice’s licences and the treatments it is authorised to perform, as well as leave ratings or file complaints.
The launch follows the death of popular singer Giorgos Mazonakis, who died earlier this September while undergoing plasmapheresis at a private practice in Kolonaki, in the heart of Athens. According to the health minister himself, the practice was not licensed to carry out the procedure. Plasmapheresis is a legitimate treatment for specific serious conditions, including certain autoimmune and neurological diseases and some blood disorders. Yet wellness centres and clinics market it as a way to “detox” the body and extend one’s lifespan.
At the same time, internet users are bombarded with advertisements for other procedures, from hydrotherapy and biostimulation treatments to cosmetic interventions such as Botox, frequently offered in uncertified premises by staff lacking the necessary qualifications.
Just ten days after MedWatch went live in Athens, Piraeus and Thessaloniki, the data paint a revealing picture of how these “medical” businesses operate. At a press conference on Tuesday, 29 September, the health minister presented the first figures, which were, by any measure, deeply alarming.
In more detail, MedWatch’s findings include:
• 119 dental practices offering hyaluronic acid treatments, mesotherapy and Botox.
• 231 cases (involving 135 practices and 29 clinics) in which stem cells were being administered without approval from the National Organisation for Medicines (EOF).
• 911 advertisements for Botox, injectable weight-loss treatments and similar procedures, despite such advertising being prohibited.
• 468 red-flagged cases of non-doctors advertising medical procedures.
• 16 cases of prescriptions issued without any examination.
That last-but-one category is particularly troubling: in 468 cases, people with no medical qualifications were presenting themselves as offering medical treatments. Inspectors also identified five businesses operating without a licence to trade under their registered name, three of them physiotherapy centres.
One figure stands out, and in doing so exposes just how wide the oversight gap had been: the sudden collapse in online advertising for medical procedures. “Between the day we were last here together and today, the drop has reached 91 percent. They have fallen by 91 percent,” the minister said.
Yet even as Georgiadis was presenting MedWatch’s findings, complaints concerning the president of the Athens Medical Association, Giorgos Patoulis, and his involvement with a wellness and longevity group were sitting with the National Transparency Authority (EAD). The Panhellenic Medical Association had forwarded them to the Health Ministry, which in turn passed them to the EAD for the required checks. In other words, the very person who might be expected to help oversee such inspections is now himself under scrutiny over serious allegations.
Asked about the matter, Georgiadis said: “I do not doubt Giorgos Patoulis’s integrity, but everyone must be subject to scrutiny. The only body responsible for handling these complaints is the EAD.”
Meanwhile, another shocking case, one that points to a possible gap in the machinery and role of the health sector’s inspection services, has unsettled Greek society. On Tuesday, an order was served for the permanent closure of a clinic in Thessaloniki, following a recommendation from the EAD that it be shut down for good and stripped of its licence. The clinic had been running an unlicensed oncology department and administering chemotherapy drugs.
Inspectors also found shortages of staff and specialists, as well as the absence of a mandatory intensive care unit, even as the clinic openly advertised its oncology services on its website.
The head of the Thessaloniki Appeals Prosecutor’s Office has ordered an urgent preliminary investigation, which will also examine earlier state inspections. Members of the Central Macedonia Region’s Private Clinics Inspection Committee have been summoned as suspects to explain why their report on an extraordinary inspection carried out in 2025 made no mention of a fully equipped oncology department.
Speaking to tovima.com, Michalis Giannakos, president of the Panhellenic Federation of Public Hospital Workers’ Unions (POEDIN), said citizens should above all be very wary of clinics whose doctors take part in lectures on wellness topics.
He added that the problem is compounded by staffing shortages, noting that the body carrying out inspections has been reduced to 57, leaving the medical associations’ administrative boards unable to keep up with the volume of cases.
