“We have well-designed healthcare strategy”: Georgian Health Minister

Tbilisi: The Minister of Health of Georgia, Zurab Azarashvili, recently attended the show named ‘Free Vision’, during which he commended the health sector in Georgia. Azarashvili stated, “We have a well-designed healthcare strategy that has clear priorities for making healthcare facilities more accessible to our population.” 

Along with this enhanced access, the Ministry will ensure that the quality of the medicines remains intact, along with protection of the rights of the people that have been employed in this system, be it their wage rates or any benefits. “All this, when it comes together, creates a quality healthcare system for Georgia.”

Further, the Georgian Minister of Health highlighted the reforms that are already being undertaken by the Ministry and ongoing by the state to increase access to high-quality medicine for the population.

According to Zurab Azarashvili, as a result of the opening of the Turkish pharmaceutical market, the population will save up to 200 million GEL annually in medicines. The minister assessed the reform as successful and noted that after the change, high-quality, of the same name and significantly affordable medicines had entered the country.

The health minister said a significant portion of the rollout following pharmaceutical reform last year, including drug price cap. The recently introduced changes in the healthcare strategy will reduce the population’s spending on medicines by another 40%.

“At first, we had selected the most sought-after, daily-use medications that are used for the chronic and oncological medications.” 

Azarashvili further explained that there are about 50 molecules, which contain more than 1200 medications of different names. In this process, we have taken into account international experience, the foreign and Georgian experts were involved. 

“We have started this reform quite successfully, and I am totally confident that the next stages, which after some time fully encompasses the pharmaceutical market, will be successful too,” Zurab Azarashvili said.