SFEE’s Press Release following the issuance of the Price Bulletin

Press Release

Halandri, June 30, 2011

Following the undoubtedly intensive efforts of the Secretariat General of the Ministry of Health, being responsible for the pricing of medicines, and the respective Directorate for Medicines & Pharmacies, the new Price Bulletin was uploaded today on the websites of the Ministry of Health and SFEE. This effort was made with objectivity and transparency. Any errors will be corrected in the Corrective Price Bulletin, which must be issued within the next 20 days as provided by the law. The Ministry of Health implemented the law and more specifically Article 14 of Law 3840/2010, according to which the prices of medicines may not be lower than the average of the three lowest prices in the 22 EU countries.
It is true that the implementation of this law is a very harsh treatment and causes huge problems in the operation of the companies. The ongoing effort to compress the prices of medicines and the one-sided focus of the State on medicines and particularly on prices, does not constitute a solution for the rationalization of healthcare expenditure. On the contrary, price reductions from the State have caused disruption of the market, without offering the desired result, which is the reduction of the expenditure, while causing significant shortages of medicines in the market by creating barriers to patients’ access to their medicines and putting in danger even their own health. It should be clear that any further price compression will only deprive the patients from the medicines they need.
The State should focus its attention on the other parts of the health sector and particularly in controlling the distribution network, in completing the IT infrastructure of the health system, the electronic prescribing, the electronic patient record, the continuous controls, which constitute the only way to control waste and mismanagement and are the only solution for the containment of expenditure.