The Pharmaceuticals Council has imposed fines of thousands of euro as it steps up checks on private pharmacies’ compliance with requirements on prescription drugs, Phileleftheros said on Saturday.
In one case, a pharmacist who had supplied a patient with 11 packets of the same pharmaceutical without a prescription was fined €5,000.
A second pharmacist was fined €2,000 for supplying customers three different prescription drugs (a total of 18) without a prescription.
The biggest fine of €10,000 was imposed on a pharmacist for supplying a specialised pharmaceutical without a prescription. The same pharmacist was found not to have updated prices on the specific medication on the packet and on his computer as required by law.
Phileleftheros said these were the highest fines ever imposed by the council which has decided to step up controls because rate at which medicines, particularly antibiotics, are dispensed without a prescription in Cyprus is much higher than the rest of Europe.
Implementation of the national health scheme is expected to curb the problem as patients will need to have a prescription in order to acquire medicine through the system.
