By Anthony O. Miller
HEALTH Minister Christos Solomis yesterday said he had ordered an investigation of two Ministry pharmacies in connection with the disappearance of a large quantity of the life-enhancing kidney drug, erythropoetine, from Nicosia General Hospital.
Solomis said he had given Senior Medical Officer Dr Andreas Demosthenous the task of uncovering possible negligence by two officers of two of the ministry’s pharmacies.
In announcing Demosthenous’ appointment, Solomis released the findings of a ministry internal investigation into the affair by Dr Costas Mallis, chief of medical services at the Public Health Service.
A separate police criminal probe has been begun into allegations the missing medicine — which is not available in private clinics — was siphoned from government stocks and sold for use in doping horses at Nicosia Racetrack.
Solomis said the two pharmacy officers should have alerted the Ministry of Health in writing of the drastic drop in erythropoetine stocks long before the stocks ran out in June.
According to Mallis’ findings, Solomis said, the shortage could have been avoided if the order for new supplies of the drug had requested 25 per cent more of it than was ordered in 1998.
“The murder has been done. The body is there. We are looking for the culprit,” Solomis said, noting he was acting on evidence uncovered by government ombudsman Eliana Nicolaou, and on certain other evidence. He was not more specific.
He said the two officers, whose names would probably be made public today, would be informed in writing about the matter, but would not suspended from work until the investigation was over.
He also said that if the ongoing police probe into the matter showed other ministry officers were involved, or if criminal offences were uncovered, he would act accordingly.
He was quick to add that all officers of his ministry were innocent until proven otherwise.
Solomis earlier pegged the value of the missing 26 per cent of the ministry’s supply of erythropoetine — some 4,131,000 units of the drug — at £22,000. But he noted that, if it had been sold on the black market, as alleged, it had a much higher value.
Solomis finessed the question when asked if the two officers had tried to tamper with patient files — as reported in the media. He merely said the police investigation would be thorough.
The 26 per cent drop in erythropoetine stocks was originally confirmed by a joint ministry-police probe. It involved checking files of the 127 patients taking the drug at Nicosia General Hospital between November 1998 through May 1999.
Erythropoetine is used to improve kidney patients’ quality of life and is usually administered after they undergo kidney dialysis.
Solomis said that, even if Nicosia General doctors had failed to update patients’ files after prescribing the drug, this could not account for so large a deficit as the 4,131,000 international units of the medicine that went missing.
He also said that if this amount had not disappeared, supplies of the drug would have lasted for at least two and a half months beyond June, when it ran out.
In her report, Ombudswoman Nicolaou — who took up the matter at the request of the New Horizons Party — said the Health Ministry had been slow to secure fresh supplies of the missing drug, even though it was aware of the urgent need.
She also noted the double urgency of replacing the missing medicine, since only the government can distribute it; it is not legally available in the private sector.
New Horizons, which has called for Solomis’ resignation over the scandal, yesterday accused him of mishandling the matter, and demanded a full criminal investigation into it.
Besides the race-horse-doping angle, police are also probing whether the tender process for more of the drug done legally.
Tenders went out in February, with March 19 as the closing date, but the contract was only signed on June 15, after the medicine had already run out.
The delay is said to have been caused by a court appeal by one supplier against the award of the tender to a second company, on grounds the appellant’s bid was lower than the bid of the company that eventually won the tender.
