The Supreme Court gave as proven the intention of the clinician to injure the state by passing revenues to obese from a drug compared to diabetics.
A 71 -year -old retired doctor was convicted by the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ) to two years and four months in prison, with suspended sentence, for Burla qualified to the state. At issue is the improper issue of nearly 1,000 income from the drug ‘Victoza’, reimbursed only for patients with type 2 diabetes, but was prescribed to 105 users with obesity problems between 2014 and 2017.
The case occurred in a private clinic in Lisbon, where the doctor was working after the reform. For more than three years, it has systematically prescribed the drug with public reimbursement of 90%injuring the state in about 99 thousand euros, advances the.
Initially acquitted by the Court of First Instance, the defendant was convicted by the Lisbon Court of Appeal and appealed to the STJ, which confirmed the conviction. The Supreme Court considered that there was a scam to the state, stressing that the doctor “took advantage of the vulnerability of the systemTo deceive pharmacies and allow their users to pay only 10% of the real value of the drug, mainly used for weight loss.
Although the defendant claims in court that his intention was only to help the sick and that he was unaware of the financial impact of his actions, the STJ rejected this argument. In the judgment, it is read that the doctor’s behavior “damaged the public purse” and that fraud sustained in a “misleading half”inducing pharmacies in error over the years.
The court also pointed out that the defendant has no criminal record and that it showed shame with the process, and even lost some patients after the disclosure of the case. The Supreme Court made it clear that, in a society with greater civic sense and responsibility, “These facts would not happen”.
