Corruption and development

Interesting graph! For the forthcoming EU FP7 25 country MoHProf final report (MoHProf= Mobility of Health Professioans) I did a similar exercise, based on Health workers per 1,000 population and life expectancy at birth. At first I thought you had copied this graph, the structure and content are virtually the same. Now what does all THAT tell us?

cheers,
f.tjadensathasca.eu

Dear Editors,

Mandatory generic prescribing is a very useful, practical and secure
way to save money, avoid licensing corruption, end over-prescribing.

In Greece, the amount of money saved could be impressive.

This is because in Greece over-prescribing, under the counter deals,
inefficient public healthcare management, and corruption have existed for decades and have geometrically increased
pharmaceutical expenditure.
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

Greece is by far the first European Country in pharmaceutical
expenditure per capita! [14] [15]

Two months ago the Ministry of Health working together with the Ministry of Social Welfare decided to copy the Spanish law. They changed plans the next day, after some meetings with officials working for Pharmaceutical Companies!

Why?

Electronic prescriptions were planned to monitor excessive expensive
preferences...

Tens of millions were spent for various IT consultations,
conferences, planning platforms, testing, etc

Why?

Pharmacies had already in use a very efficient system, which was
offered to anyone interested, free of charge!

Only a small percentage of Public Hospitals and Surgeries have
managed to implement electronic prescribing so far.

Why?

References

[1] BMC Health Serv Res. 2005 May 28;5:41.
Organisation and financing of the health care systems of Bulgaria and Greece -- what are the parallels?
Exadaktylos NM.
Higher Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki (A.T.E.I.T.), Vasilis Olgas 6, 54640, Thessaloniki, Greece.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1156891/?tool=pubmed

[2] Health Syst Transit. 2010 Nov;12(7):1-177.
Greece health system review.
Economou C. Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences.
World Health Organization 2010, on behalf of the European Observatory on health systems and Policies.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21330233

[3] Health Econ. 2005 Sep;14(Suppl 1):S151-68.
Analysing the Greek health system: a tale of fragmentation and inertia.
Mossialos E, Allin S, Davaki K.
London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Health and Social Care, UK.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16161195

[4] Health Policy. 2008 Jul;87(1):72-81. Epub 2008 Feb 4.
Informal payments in public hospitals in Greece.
Liaropoulos L, Siskou O, Kaitelidou D, Theodorou M, Katostaras T.
Center for Health Services Management and Evaluation, Faculty of Nursing, University of Athens, Greece.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18249459

[5] Bribes in Greek public hospitals, Stavros Saripanidis’ Rapid Response in:

http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d2408?tab=responses

[6] Greek Hospitals produce every year debt exceeding Hospital total market value, Stavros Saripanidis’ Rapid Response in:

http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d4870?tab=responses

[7] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/05/greece-healthcare-brink-cata...

[8] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15220054

[9] doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)61556-0

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)61556-0/fulltext

[10] doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)61152-5

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)61152-5/fulltext

[11] Corruption and informal payments in Greek public hospitals, reported by Deutsche Welle, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, ABC Australia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUrVT0lRu3g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkqxQ3qZg90

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020365880457663881208956638...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/11/12/greeks-seeking-access-to-hea...

[12] Widespread corruption in Greek medical doctors

http://www.hri.org/news/greek/apeen/2010/10-06-14.apeen.html

[13] Greek National Health System will collapse within months, says Health Minister:

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_6625_27/01/2012_424775

[14] http://www.onmedica.com/newsArticle.aspx?id=098f821c-94bb-4acf-ac08-e663...

[15] http://www.cmaj.ca/content/183/9/E523.full.pdf

A single transparent online international auction permitted Greek hospitals to achive an amazing 92% cost reduction on antibiotics! [1]

Greek taxpayers have been paying for decades very expensive pharmaceutical products.

Evidently, 92% more profit could generate extensive and longlasting corrurtion…

Reference

[1] http://www.greeknewsagenda.gr/2011/11/e-procurement-for-generic-drugs-sa...

Competing interests: Dr Stavros Saripanidis is a diligent Greek taxpayer who has apparently funded more corruption than hospital drugs.

New evidence reveals that, every year, 1 billion euros worth of pharmaceuticals are thrown away from households alone, in Greece. [1][2]

This figure does not include public hospital pharmaceuticals!

Furthermore, only a small percentage of these are generics.

It is evident that over-prescription of pharmaceuticals in Greece is still widespread, despite tough austerity measures and constant IMF-EU-ECB surveillance.

Evidently, corrupted doctors have never stopped to profit, due to inefficiency of controls…

References

[1] http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_08/02/2012_426697

[2] http://www.athensnews.gr/portal/1/53081

Competing interests: Dr Stavros Saripanidis is a diligent Greek taxpayer who pays for all these expensive pharmaceuticals that get thrown away.

...

I see more than a few correspondents have declared their discomfort with the "perceptions" index. I share their concerns, noting that the TI CPI places New Zealand at top rank.

This despite New Zealand being an undeclared finance centre, with thousands of shell companies laundering billions of dollars. A highly corporatised news media regularly ignores cases of blatant corruption, as revealed by The Proxy Platform, by the Reporting Project.

Perhaps this is why the Perceptions index is so misleading - it asks people to rank their own country.

Greece and perhaps Italy won't outliers for much longer.

No wonder Britain does so well on this chart: they removed Liam Fox from the Defense Ministry for "allowing the perception of a conflict of interest to arise," even though there was no conflict of interest. That's anti-corruption at a level most countries ought not yet strive to match, for it is an unrealistic expectation in most countries. Kudos, UK.

Yup. Just got back from a month long stay in Greece. In short, Greek people don't give a damn. They do what's best for themselves without thinking of society. They think because they invented democracy and blah blah that there's no need to be productive members of society anymore. WELL everything has an expiration date, Greece..

Iraq has better Human Development Index than India... seriously?

Did anyone else notice that there is a correlation between citizens' support for traditions and tribalism and the bottom left corner?

Regardless how rigorous or fair the two indices are defined, it's a darn shame that China isn't placed higher in each index.

I am sure there are legitimate reasons dragging the speed of reform in these areas for a country of this size (and a GDP this low), but I believe we Chinese should have no excuse to see their nation remaining in the same neighborhood of the chart without seeing some significant improvement next year and the year next and so on.

lets swap turkey for italy & greece in the Eurozone. Will improve the corruptionindex AND the growth prospect of the EURO.

While it's obviously impossible to completely measure corruption you can get some kind of accuracy from reported bribes, measurements of the value of property and luxury items owned by powerful people compared to their actual salary, the probable independence of courts from moneyed interests etc. This will still be just a guess and measuring it can be dangerous, but it is viable.
In the case of the U.S, despite common assertions that all politicians and CEOs in this country are corrupt, many actually do follow the basics of American law. Of course they will go as far as they can while staying within the letter (and not spirit) of the law and some industries (such as coal) do violate the law but there's a reason the U.S economy is so large. You can do business in this country. In comparison, it's risky to do business in places like Russia or Venezuela, and without their oil and natural gas wealth both nations would be much more impoverished.

While the chart predictably shows that both developed and undeveloped states suffer from corruption, it also shows something curious, that for a country to be free of corruption, it must be on the more developed side. It's a sad thing to think that developed countries, if this trend is completely accurate, will also be plagued by corruption until at least they reach a higher stage of development.

The use of public office for private gain must also include abuses of absolute power by the ruling elite in awarding huge emoluments to themselves and their cronies. Such abuses are adroitly and artfully done with full public knowledge, justified as just and deserving reward for the powers-that-be and legislated.

If Transparency International include factors, the surely Singapore would be somewhere at the bottom, not among the top 5.

Although this graph is depicted to be a good representation of corruption and human development, it again is quite misleading. All of the circles representing countries are all crammed together and make it confusing. On the other hand, some aren't even labeled. This graph makes it hard to decipher one country apart from others and should be redrawn using different representation and scales.

Further on legalized bribes vs corruption. People can demand a government to have a "crackdown" on corruption, but what can citizens do to reduce legalized bribes? voting? Isn't this where the legalized bribes come from?

There must be a better way .....

TI's attempt to rationalise its failure to provide an objective measure of corruption – or indeed any agreed definition of what constitutes corruption - is rather like a classical physicist rationalising his failure to find an absolute frame of reference for the Ether.

It could just be that no such thing exists.

If there is no agreed absolute frame of reference, then TI’s conclusions are as relative as the perceptions of corruption. Any number of interpretations become possible:

1. there is an underlying absolute corruption which reduces economic development; and/or

2. people in more developed countries have typically spent longer in school and have been more thoroughly indoctrinated to believe that their own glorious nation is honest; and/or

3. people in more developed countries are getting what they want, so they don’t worry about corruption; and/or

4. the people surveyed in more developed countries are themselves engaged in – and benefit from – legal forms of corruption but don’t like to admit it, even to themselves; and/or

5. etc, etc, etc . . .

It’s all Fun with Statistics. But one may use it to draw any conclusions one wishes.

From Rudao:

Can we make a separate graph, adding legalized bribes (donations to political parties, lobbying, PR consultant, etc.) to the more developed countries. Then, make a comparison, using %age of GDP?

Corruption in its nature is "power in exchange for money". We should include all forms of power/money games then this graph will make sense.

Alas, there is a time when Mao had wiped the face of Corruption from the face of China. Despite its vast richness now, many people still yearn for the glory Years of Yenan spirit.