WHEN THE STATE, unthinkingly, provides ultra-privileges to top state officials that no ordinary citizen of the Republic enjoys, it is inevitable that these officials start to believe that preferential treatment is their entitlement. For instance no individual working in the private sector is eligible to a tax-free expense allowance, whereas top state officials are given €18,000 per year (deputies receive a higher allowance), which is also factored into the calculation of their pensions.
Deputy Attorney-general Akis Papasavvas is one of these privileged few and is paid the allowance over and above his €92,000 annual salary. Inevitably he did not believe that his preferential treatment should end there. As was reported by Politis last week, Papasavvas had 10 tooth implants by a private cranio-facial surgeon and applied to the state for reimbursement of the €17,000 bill.
Even though he had not gone through the proper procedures for securing such funding and despite the fact that such treatment is paid for by the state only when there are serious medical reasons to justify it, Papasavvas was reimbursed the full amount by the health ministry, within one month of submitting the bill. For an ordinary citizen, who followed the correct procedures, securing prior approval for treatment at a private clinic, the wait would have been at least three months.
It would be interesting for the health ministry to inform us how many other people have been given the go-ahead to have tooth implants privately, at the expense of the taxpayer? If there are any, they are probably members of the privileged club of state officials who consider it a right to milk the taxpayer at every opportunity. The Government Dental Services do not offer such treatment, opting for the much cheaper option of dentures. Only in exceptional circumstances – for instance someone suffering from Parkinson’s disease for whom dentures would be a problem – would the dentists’ committee give approval for implants.
In the case of Papasavvas, no justification has been provided for the implants. In fact, the documents relating to the approval, have mysteriously gone missing from the case file so nobody knows who approved the reimbursement of Papasavvas’ bill for cosmetic surgery. The police have launched an investigation to find out what happened to the missing documents.
This is a sham. If the health minister wanted to establish who in the health ministry gave approval for Papasavvas’ implants it would require fewer than 30 minutes to find out, with no need to stage this theatre with the police. Apart from the health minister, there are not many other officials, who have the authority to approve reimbursement for cosmetic surgery, considering no medical committee could have given its approval.
Whoever it was, the Health Minister Christos Patsalides is ultimately responsible, because under his watch his ministry is paying for tooth implants for a state official on a top salary, while low-income citizens in much greater need of financial help for private healthcare are ignored by the state. It seems cosmetic surgery for members of the privileged class like Papasavvas is a bigger priority than treatment for poor members of our society with real health problems.
