2,400 euros in cash for 'bloodless liposuction', a 'Quantum Biofeedback Clinic', an anaesthetist doing hair transplants: what Greece's Transparency Authority found in private practices

Greece abolished its specialised health inspectorate, SEYYP, under law 4622/2019 and handed its inspection powers to the National Transparency Authority (EAD), while licensing and supervision of private practices passed to the regional medical associations. In September 2026, after the death of a man ertnews.gr described as a well-known singer at a private practice on Karneadou Street in central Athens, which Ta Nea reported held only an internal-medicine practice licence dating from 2013 and had plasmapheresis machines on site, the authority's findings on private practices became public.

According to ertnews.gr and HuffPost Greece, both reporting on 23 September 2026, the authority delivered its first findings to the health minister from inspections of aesthetic centres and practices triggered by complaints. One complainant, a 30-year-old woman in Thessaloniki, said she paid 2,400 euros for "bloodless liposuction" after seeing a social-media advertisement; she said she was told to pay in cash, that an employee walked her to a cash machine, that the procedure was done without sterile conditions and that the local anaesthetic was mixed in a tin basin. Inspectors found a practice licensed to a biopathologist operating without the doctor present, holding hyaluronic acid, fillers and exosomes with no invoices; a "naturopathic care centre" with colonic irrigation and bioresonance machines; a company practice whose certificate named a doctor with no specialty; and premises advertised online as a "Quantum Biofeedback Clinic" whose owner had no recognised degree. Since its creation the authority has produced about 2,500 findings in such cases, including medical acts by non-doctors in hair transplants, acupuncture and homeopathy, a paediatrician who gave a child an expired vaccine, an employee performing a procedure while the doctor directed by video call, and cord-blood and stem-cell banks without a licence.

CNN.gr, on 21 September, published the authority's figures: more than 2,500 special-audit findings and 1,500 regular-audit findings in health by June 2026, 287 inspections of private health units, and 1,576 regular audits between 2020 and 2026. In one Attica polyclinic, hair transplants were carried out by an anaesthetist and nursing staff, including a nurse without a licence, in a dermatology practice with no dermatologist present; the Athens Medical Association revoked the practice's licence for a month, fined it 14,600 euros and the file went to the prosecutor. CNN.gr also described a home in Thessaloniki turned into an aesthetic clinic, with counterfeit Dysport packaging and unidentified vials, referred to the medicines agency and prosecutors. Ta Nea reported on 18 September that of 1,500 findings on private practices in five years, only 26 cases had reached disciplinary bodies or the courts.

The pattern is licences that describe one thing and premises that do another: an internal-medicine licence covering plasmapheresis machines, a dermatology licence with no dermatologist, a "scientific director" who is a doctor without any specialty. According to ertnews.gr, the Athens Medical Association has written to the scientific societies asking them to define which acts and equipment each specialty may use, because the law does not say. CNN.gr reported 13 findings sent to the Athens Medical Association for discipline and 26 to prosecutors.

For a patient in Greece, including a foreign student, the check is the regional medical association's register and the operating certificate on the wall, which names the doctor and the specialty the practice is licensed for. If the person treating you is not the person named, or the treatment has nothing to do with the licensed specialty, walk out. In the Thessaloniki complaint the warning signs were a social-media advertisement and a demand for cash.