Private expenditure on medicines remains high
Greece has among the highest per capita private spending on pharmaceuticals in the European Union, ranking fifth among the 22 member-states for which there are available figures.
The data, concerning 2016, showed that each Greek spent an average of 171 euros per year on drugs, vaccines, bandages etc, compared to an EU mean rate of 135 euros/year.
In contrast, the tight pharmaceutical budget imposed on the state by the bailout program has brought public spending on pharmaceuticals to 188 euros/year per capita, against an EU average of 303 euros/year, according to the statistics presented on Monday at a press conference by the Hellenic Association of Pharmaceutical Companies (SFEE) and the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE).
Greece has had one of the lowest state spending levels in the EU for the last five years in a row, SFEE president Olympios Papadimitriou stated, with the average annual spending per capita by the states of the European south coming to 246 euros.
The joint SFEE-IOBE report on the pharmaceuticals market in Greece showed that spending excluding hospitals amounted to 3.6 billion euros last year and is projected to be roughly the same in 2019.
The bulk of that amount – i.e., 1.945 billion euros – concerns public spending, going to the Healthcare Service Provision Organization (EOPYY) for the drugs that people insured with the fund require.
