Health Minister gives his company car to hospital to serve patients
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Monday, January 25
The Minister of Health of Georgia, Davit Sergeenko, has stated that he handed over his company car to the Republican Hospital of Tbilisi for it to be used by family doctors.
The Minister highlighted that Georgia has had a seasonal increase of the H1N1 swine flu virus and there was a need for additional vehicles to visit patients at home.
The Minister also appealed to other officials to temporarily give their cars to medical institutions.
At the same time, the Minister said that there was no risk of an epidemic in Georgia.
The same was repeated by Georgias National Centre of Disease Control (NCDC), which stressed the situation was quite typical for the winter season and considerably lower fatalities have been reported compared to the same periods of previous years.
The Minister also announced about a new protocol through which family doctors, instead of ambulance doctors, would go to see patients of risk groups.
The elderly and people with various chronic diseases belong are most at risk, along with children and pregnant women.
According to him, family doctors were more qualified to render assistance to certain categories of patients.
The Minister also asked people to timely go to hospitals or see their doctor in case they suffer from the following symptoms:
Fever or feeling feverish/chills
Cough
Sore throat
Runny or stuffy nose
Muscle or body aches
Headaches
Fatigue
Some people may have vomiting and diarrhea, though this is more common in children than adults.
Up to now, three people have died from swine flu in Georgia in this winter. All of them suffered from chronic deceases or received belated treatment.
