The European Commission has announced plans to review and possibly strengthen its alert system for medical professionals following a disturbing investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). The probe revealed that hundreds of doctors banned for serious misconduct in one European country were still practicing in others, exploiting systemic loopholes and weak oversight mechanisms.

The investigation, titled Bad Practice, uncovered more than 100 cases of doctors who had lost their medical licenses for egregious offenses – including sexual assault of patients, deliberate misdiagnoses, and gross negligence – yet continued to work in other European jurisdictions. The findings have triggered alarm among European officials, prompting calls for urgent reform to safeguard patient safety across the continent.

At the center of the controversy is the European Commission’s Internal Market Information (IMI) system, designed to facilitate communication between medical authorities in 30 member states. Through the IMI, countries are supposed to share alerts about disciplinary actions against healthcare professionals, ensuring that those deemed unfit to practice in one country cannot quietly resume their careers elsewhere.

However, OCCRP’s investigation, conducted in partnership with media outlets across Europe, revealed that the IMI system is riddled with inefficiencies and underuse. Several countries – including Malta, Greece, Liechtenstein, and Estonia – have reportedly filed zero alerts since 2016, when the reporting requirement was first introduced. Ten other countries have filed fewer than ten alerts in nearly a decade.

In many cases, even when alerts were issued, the information shared was too sparse to be useful. Lithuania’s healthcare accreditation authority, for example, admitted that identifying the specific doctor referred to in IMI notifications was nearly........

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