The Health Ministry is investigating a chilling incident in which a pharmacist from southern Israel working for one of Israel's largest HMOs is suspected of emptying the contents of a large number of medicine capsules, filling them with baking soda instead and repackaging them to sell to patients, N12 reported on Wednesday evening.
In recent weeks, the ministry has been working to find out both exactly how many patients of his received the fake medicine, and whether the pharmacist's alleged actions caused any patients' health to deteriorate.
The case against the pharmacist reportedly began after the HMO began to notice that in one of the active pharmacies in Israel, one of the pharmacists was not following Health Ministry procedures.
Senior Health Ministry officials said that after the suspicions arose, HMO employees began looking into the pharmacist's work habits and following his actions, according to N12.
Once it was discovered that the pharmacist had been emptying capsules and replacing their contents, the HMO decided to report the pharmacist to the Health Ministry.
In the coming days, the ministry is expected to contact the police in order to evaluate the scope of the affair.