The social affairs committee of the Parliament has completed the elaboration of the funding bill for the strengthening of the National Social Security System and the monitoring of pharmaceutical expenditure. New Democracy has declared in favor of the bill.

The opposition, with the exception of the KKE which declared from the beginning that it would vote against it, has declared a reservation for its final position in the plenary session.

This bill has solutions for many individual issues, repeated the Minister of Health.

Referring to the clow back provisions, Mr. Georgiadis said that clow back is a “drug to control pharmaceutical expenditure” and “like all drugs, it has side effects, especially when you take it in large doses, when the side effects can be fatal”, that is, “to be without drugs”, after companies arrived to have to pay clow back 83%.

“This created a big crisis in the industry and in our relationship with them and in ensuring the flow of medicines in Greece. So one of the goals was to reduce the clow back, so that there would be smoothness in the market. One of the measures to reduce the claw back is the article on the rationalization of the automatic return (claw back) on hospital pharmaceutical expenses”, said the Minister of Health and added that in fact, what is done with the stated provision is that “it is reduced the protection of medicines from 5 euros and above in order to have a more balanced distribution of the claw back to the most expensive medicines which had gone too high”.

He also mentioned that the claw back law, since it was first established, has saved the Greek taxpayer tens of billions of euros.

Mr. Georgiadis, during his intervention, responded to the criticism that the government is blocking plans to convert the NHS hospitals into Private Legal Entities.

“Said Mr. Panagiotopoulos (s.s. special buyer of SYRIZA) that the vision of the Minister of Health Adonis Georgiadis would be to make all hospitals NPID. True hearth. I have no problem telling you that, if you ask my opinion, NPIDs work better. As for whether I intend to do it, i.e. to convert all NHS hospitals into NPIDs, no I do not intend to. You will tell me ‘why don’t you prefer?’ Because there are also political reasons in a decision. I may believe that the NPIDs work better, it does not mean that all ND MPs respect this, the entire government that the National Social Security System is ripe for such a change. So if you ask me if I have any such plan, I answer you that no I do not have such a plan. If you ask me, ‘do you think it would be useful?’, I say yes, I think it would be useful. But now is not the time to do it. OK, let the next ministers do something. No need to do it all now…. However, let’s be clear, although I believe it would be useful, I do not have such a plan.”

The Minister of Health also commented on the criticisms he and the government receive for a policy of commercializing health and strengthening entrepreneurship in health.

“Despite what you accuse me of being a minister who wants to destroy the NHS in favor of the private sector, I have to tell you that a little while ago I had a very scathing message from one of the very big clinicians saying to me ‘74.6% you have increased the budget for health, under Mitsotakis, and we private clinics did not get a single euro”. And that’s true. Indeed, 99.9% of the funds we raised went into the public system. Because as much as you want to tell us that we want to destroy and shut down the public system, we have no such intention. On the contrary, all the resources we achieve and secure from the development of the Greek economy and the management of public finances are directed to the public system and all reforms aim to make the public system work better”, said Mr. Georgiadis.

Earlier, the Minister of Health addressed SYRIZA: “You are celebrating today that Merkel says good things about Tsipras. Celebrate! You took power with the indignant, with the go back madame Merkel and the Second Reich, you called PASOK traitors and worshipers, to Schäuble and Merkel, and today on all the channels you are crowing like peacocks, puffing up that he said something about Tsipras! Come on, figure it out…”.

During the meeting of the Social Affairs committee, SYRIZA MP Pavlos Polakis asked the minister to submit to the Parliament the funding decision, from TAA, for the afternoon free surgeries. Once again, Mr. Polakis, he also referred to the infrastructure renovation program of hospitals and primary health care structures. “I am upset because if we had this money, we would deliver another health system to the country,” said the SYRIZA MP and once again accused the government of giving much more money than the infrastructure upgrades actually cost. “You are throwing money at five times the cost, for energy upgrade projects,” said Mr. Polakis and emphasized that this is the picture for all the projects that have been planned and contracted.

All the tenders for the renovation of the Health Centers have been carried out by the independent team of TAIPED and have followed all the procedures set by the EU for public international tenders, replied the Minister of Health Adonis Georgiadis and added that all the contracts have been passed by the control of the Court of Auditors, which basically controls the costs. The Ministry of Health has no involvement. “Essentially, we are renovating 93 hospitals and 158 health centers from the ground up, and it is the biggest structural upgrade of the NHS, since its establishment. We are talking about a cosmogony. You will get bored of seeing ribbons,” the minister said.

Commenting on the departure of Mr. Polakis from the hall at the end of his intervention, without waiting for the answer of the minister to whom he addressed, Adonis Georgiadis replied: Mr. Polakis did a dress rehearsal as leader or rather co-leader of SYRIZA. As a co-owner, he is probably also a co-leader and it will probably be confirmed what I said that Mr. Famellos made a big mistake not going to the second round. But let them solve this among themselves… I believe this series will have many more episodes.”

In relation to the TAA money for the free afternoon surgeries, Mr. Georgiadis commented: “It implies that Mr. Polakis that there is no approval from the TAA. That is, the minister, the prime minister would come out and say that the action is starting and we would not have the approval from the TAA. This is a comedy, as you understand. Anyone of you in doubt has only to apply for the filing of documents and get the relevant documents.”