Pharmacist

Authorities have arrested 18 suspects, including three doctors and pharmacists in Istanbul, responsible for a staggering 5 million Turkish Liras ($160,700) worth of public loss to the Social Security Institution (SGK) wtih the issuance of counterfeit prescriptions.

An investigation has been launched after a Russian family promoted a pharmacy on their social media account, claiming that their medications were cheaper and making negative statements about other pharmacies in the southern province of Antalya's Kemer district.

There is a shortage of many pharmaceutical products and pharmacists fear that it will get worse over the winter, when respiratory illnesses will flare up again.

Due to medication shortages, more pharmacists are returning to their laboratories and offering an additional service in their pharmacies that is often overlooked: the preparation of galenic formulations.

Pharmacists in Attica have announced a four-hour work stop on Wednesday in support of the strike called in the aftermath of the Tempe railway disaster.

Pharmacies will close from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Attica Pharmaceutical Association said.

Their counterparts in Thessaloniki said they would strike from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Hundreds of residents of small settlements in Bulgaria continue to be without access to medicines.

According to data from the Executive Medicines Agency, by 2021 the number of pharmacies in our country was 3,300, with a third of them concentrated in Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna.

New supplies of antibiotics and antivirals, which are missing from pharmacies in Bulgaria, are expected this week. In the coming days, the measure announced by the Minister of Health last week, according to which doctors and pharmacists will have access to information about missing and available drugs in wholesale warehouses, should also work.

A former pharmacist in Thessaloniki has been found guilty of defrauding a public social insurance fund of €300,000 by issuing fake prescriptions over a three-year period.

A court sentenced the 75-year-old defendant to nine years' imprisonment but suspended the punishment pending appeal and upon the payment of €5,000 bail.

A peculiar trend has come to light among Russian tourists holidaying in Türkiye of purchasing medicines such as painkillers and antidepressants and taking them to their country upon their return as its comparatively cheaper.

Melih Ziya Sezer, owner of one of the oldest pharmacies in Istanbul's Moda district, has died at the age of 90. It has been reported that the 120-year-old pharmacy will become a museum after the death of Sezer, who has been healing for years in the pharmacy he inherited from his father.