In Switzerland, a major medical-financial scandal with a Belarusian trace is being uncovered
In Switzerland, a trial has begun against the former heads of the Corela clinic, which found itself at the center of a major medical-financial scandal. The illegal actions of the management extended beyond the country's borders, and some threads from the tangle unraveled by investigators also lead to Belarus, writes 20min.ch.
Photo: TDG — L. Fortunati
The Corela clinic, opened in 2003 and closed in 2018, was almost entirely dedicated to preparing medical reports for insurance companies. According to the investigation, these reports were often falsified to declare patients fit for work, even if they were ill or recovering from injuries. This allowed insurance companies to avoid paying compensation.
According to the prosecution, the clinic used a complex scheme. For conducting expert evaluations, the clinic primarily recruited doctors who had studied abroad, meaning those who knew nothing about the field of expertise and insurance in Switzerland. During interviews, these practitioners relied on a template or an initial draft containing conclusions and instructions prepared in advance based on the insured person's medical documents.
This work was carried out by fifty to seventy clinic employees based in Madagascar (of which doctors, insurers, insured persons, and authorities were unaware), from where they worked under fictitious names. The clinic's IT data processing, in turn, was entrusted to employees living in Belarus, also without anyone's knowledge.
It also emerged that the deputy head, who had no medical education, worked under a false name and participated in managing the process.
Both defendants are suspected of falsifying documents and violating medical secrecy by transferring confidential data abroad. Some of the more serious charges against them, such as fraud and corruption, were dropped during the long investigation.
Before the investigative actions began, the former head managed to destroy the clinic's archives, which complicated the investigation.