Tbilisi: The Minister of Health Mikheil Sarjveladze met with the Public Defender of Georgia Levan Ioseliani. The minister and public defender during this visit have discussed the current situation and challenges in the country in the psychiatric and mental health issues.
The Minister thanked the Public Defender for his interest in the issue and noted that the development of mental health services is a stated goal of the Ministry. He said ministry is working in partnership with many regional and international agencies.
According to health minister Mikheil Sarjveladze, the Ministry plans to significantly improve mental health services by mobilizing financial resources and defining quality indicators and in this process, cross-sectoral cooperation is very important.
On the other hand, in turn the Public Defender shared recommendations in this direction with the Ministry and noted that the agency is actively working to implement them as soon as possible.
The meeting was attended by Deputy Minister of IDPs from the Occupied Territories, Labor, Health and Social Protection Irine Tsakadze, Head of the Ministry’s Department of Social Protection, IDPs and Labor Policy Tamar Kurtanidze.
The other who was also present on this special occasion includes the Director of the Agency for State Care and Victims of Trafficking Rusudan Kokhodze, as well as deputies of the Public Defender and representatives of the Office.
It is worth to note that the problem of mental health issues has become very critical in present day across the globe. The large populations even living in well developed countries is struggling to overcome the challenges of mental health.
It is worth to note that many countries have also introduced special initiatives as measures to tackle the mental health problem in the country. The health minister of Georgia said that this is not the first time the Georgian health ministries is taking measures as a fight against the mental health issues.
In the past years also, we have taken such initiative, and we have planed more such efforts at high level which will cover highest number of people from across the country.
