Greek Minister Orders Doctor Removed From NHS After Video Shows Anesthesiologist Allegedly Seeking €100 Cash Payment

Greece's wellness curate has ordered an anesthesiologist astatine a nationalist oncology infirmary removed from the National Health System.

The determination followed a patient-recorded video connected societal media, which appeared to amusement the doc requesting an unofficial currency outgo of astir €100 for services that should beryllium provided escaped of charge.

Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis said his probe identified some the infirmary and the doc wrong hours of the video coming to his attention.

"I abhor the signifier of informal payments, which exploits radical astatine their astir vulnerable," Mr. Georgiadis wrote connected X, adding that helium was instructing the infirmary medication to instrumentality each ineligible steps indispensable to region the doc from nationalist service.

He besides issued a nationalist apology to the patient.

In the footage, the diligent is heard asking the doc what outgo is expected.

The doc initially declines, but aft a caregiver leaves the country suggests an magnitude of astir €100. The speech prompted an contiguous interior investigation.

The incidental has renewed nationalist absorption connected Greece's long-running occupation of alleged "envelope payments" — unofficial currency solicited by healthcare workers successful speech for nationalist aesculapian services.

The signifier has persisted successful Greece's nationalist wellness assemblage for decades, surviving successive authorities pledges to eradicate it, and is wide regarded arsenic 1 of the astir corrosive forms of petty corruption successful the country's institutions.