Greek Industry Threat To Drug Supplies Over Hospital Debts

For the first 10 months of 1996, the debts of Greece's state-run hospitals to pharmaceutical manufacturers and importers stood at 84 billion drachmas ($333 million) for unpaid supplies of medicines alone, and by the end of the year this total is expected to advance to about 100 billion drachmas ($416 million), covering a period of 12-18 months.

This was revealed at a meeting last week between Greek Health Minister Kostas Gitonas, Under-Secretary of Health Emanouil Skoulakis, and representatives of the manufacturers and the importers. The latter told the government officials that a deadline of end-1996 would be set for settling these debts, and if they were not paid by this time then the companies would suspend supplies of drugs to the hospitals. The industry representatives pointed out that companies have already paid 23 billion drachmas ($95 million) in taxes on supplies of drugs for which they have not been paid.

Debt Re-Negotiation Rejected The Minister suggested the amounts owed to companies by each hospital should be renegotiated with discounts of up to 33%, but this was rejected by the company representatives, who repeated their earlier proposal that the debts could be partially offset by company payments to the National Drug Organization and social security. They noted that this financing is received by the hospitals only after long delays, and then frequently not in full.