Thessaloniki: Doctor sentenced for “foldets” by patients in “Theagenio”

sentenced by the Three-member Defect court to a total prison sentence of 4 years and 3 months, for receiving “foldies” from his patients, in “Theagene” Anti-cancer hospital, in order to bypass the waiting list in surgery. The court suspended the sentence for three years, provided the doctor at the “Theagene” hospital appears, once a month, in the Police Department of the place where he lives. The indictment included 16 allegations of bribery, 11 of which were found guilty (by profession) and the remaining five were acquitted. The transactions were carried out between January 2018 and the same month of the following year, while the amounts received in the file ranged from EUR 800 to EUR 1600 as the case may be. The court also found him guilty of the act of attempted threat and intimidation, on three occasions (not guilty of three others), because when the criminal investigation began it threatened witnesses – patients and their relatives, so as not to testify against him. As reported, the 61-year-old doctor, with a specialty of gynecologist-oncologist, and a temporary director at the time in a clinic of the “Theageneion” citing the urgency of the surgery the patients needed, asked the same or their attendants for money to bypass in their favor the waiting list they allegedly claimed was several months. The defendant had been arrested in January 2019, following a complaint by one of his patients to the Deputy Director of Internal Affairs of Northern Greece, EL.A. In his possession had been found marked notes of 1,000 euros delivered to him by the “diafluoros” of EL.A., pretending to be a relative of the complainant. During the investigation conducted in his office two agendas with patient names were seized. Based on these agendas, the interviewer who had taken the case asked the Deputy Director of Internal Affairs to consider any other cases of bribery. Thus came the other patients or relatives of those who were eventually included in the indictment. In his apology the doctor denied the charges, arguing that he was the victim of “planning”. As his defenders stated, the time at issue their commandant conducted about 300 surgeries and no one other than the 16 above was found to denounce him and even with unruly and unsupposed allegations, as they pointed out in their speeches.