At the opening ceremony of a conference on “Fraud in healthcare” in Lisbon, Francisca Van Dunem said the change in this kind of crime would happen when Portugal signs the European Commission (EC) Medicrime convention on counterfeit medical products and similar crimes.

“Healthcare is a relevant market for crime today from poorly organised domestic criminals to large transnational gangs”, she said.

Without going into specific numbers about the impact of fraud on the Portuguese health service, the minister said that world estimates point to about 10% of its total costs.