Minister of Health Panagiotis Kouroumplis on Wednesday criticized our lenders for insisting on deregulating the sale of non-prescription drugs, calling it an “inexplicable obsession” because this would pave the way for their sale via super-markets.
In an interview to ANT1 tv, Kouroumplis said that he believes the sale of over-the-counter (OTC), or non-prescription, drugs in regular shops is unacceptable and said they should be only sold via pharmacies. He said that the creditors believe that they possess the one truth and that they have answers for all matters and stressed that even in the case where policies did not perform as expected the creditors refuse to admit that they were wrong.
In 2014, the previous Greek government, headed by former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, enacted a new law removing most of the restrictions regulating pharmacies in the country, in a bid to reduce the cost of medicines. Prior to the reform, Greek residents needed to obtain or inherit a costly license to open a pharmacy and were guaranteed an income amounting to around 35 percent of the sales price of all the medicines they sold. On its part, the Panhellenic Pharmaceutical Association (which represents Greek pharmacists), maintains that this move would make OTC drugs more expensive.
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