Hospital worker arrested for tipping funeral service of patients’ imminent death

Police has arrested two stretcher-bearers at the public hospital on the island of Lesvos who took bribes from the owner of a funeral parlor to inform him which patients were in critical condition and likely to die.

The arrests on Tuesday followed a complaint filed at the local police station.

The two suspects, one of whom works at the island’s General Hospital and the other is the funeral service owner,  are facing charges of bribery, bribery of a civil servant, breach of confidentiality, breach of duty and instigation to violate official confidentiality. The case file also names another employee of the hospital.

Both suspects were led before a prosecutor who launched a preliminary investigation.

Police said the two employees had gained access to the electronic files of the hospital’s doctors at least since the end of August this year.

They were systematically leaking confidential medical and personal data to the owner of the funeral parlor, who, in turn, undertook the funeral services, thus obtaining a financial benefit.

So far, 74 cases of violation of official confidentiality have been identified, of which 54 concerned patients who died, while for 26 of these, the funeral was undertaken by the business in question.

Police raided the homes and business premises of the suspects, found and confiscated 18,240 euros, mobile phones, documents and handwritten notes, local media lesvosnews.net reported.