Scandal at Oncological Hospital causes shock and protests by civil society

Revelations about the defrauding scheme organized by senior doctors and managers at the Oncological Hospital of Tirana’s Mother Theresa University Hospital Center have caused uproar and disgust among Albanians from all walks of life.

Why is this relevant

The scandal has prompted difficult questions about how a scheme of this magnitude could go unnoticed by authorities for so long. Civil society has already engaged in protests over the scandal, with the opposition demanding a parliamentary interpellation. Health professionals and authorities, including the Minister for Health and Social Welfare, appeared shaken and sickened by the perversity of the scheme.

Context

The scandal was uncovered following an 18-month investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office of Tirana, which involved wiretapping and undercover infiltrators. According to the indictment, the suspects, many of whom held senior positions in the country’s largest oncology hospital, collaborated to defraud patients for personal financial gain. In numerous cases, doctors exaggerated patients’ diagnoses and inflated disease stages to push them into more expensive treatments. They then defrauded patients by inventing delays to deny them treatment at the public Oncology Hospital, redirecting them instead to their own private clinics. In some instances, patients with early-stage tumors were prescribed unnecessary and excessively expensive surgical procedures.

Additionally, the indictment reveals that for three years, the Oncology Hospital team failed to activate and properly isolate the hospital’s cobalt therapy machine, diverting potential patients to their private clinics for treatment and risking the health and lives of hospital staff.

Sickening texts and phone communications

What added to the revulsion and widespread shock among Albanians was the casual and demeaning manner in which the accused discussed their patients. Publicly released wiretaps reveal the suspects calculating how many patients’ surgeries they needed to scam to afford holidays in the Maldives or Thailand. In other instances, one of the key indicted doctors responded to news of worsening conditions among patients sent to his private clinic with expletives.

This is not the first scandal involving doctors and health workers in Albania, albeit this is undoubtedly one of the most shocking. Despite significant improvements in infrastructure and service over the past years, the public health system continues to suffer from serious shortcomings, especially when it comes to the quality of service and the blurring of boundaries between public and private providers.

While discussing the case in Parliament, the Minister for Health and Social Welfare declared that the Ministry has initiated its own administrative investigation into the case. She added that on top of the other criminal sanctions, all the health professionals that engage in unethical intervention and behavior will have their licenses permanently revoked.