Free medicine for socially vulnerable
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Tuesday, April 11
Georgia’s Minister of Health, David Sergeenko, has announced that up to 600,000 people, mainly the socially vulnerable and pensioners living alone who suffer from cardiovascular problems, asthma or endocrine diseases, will receive up to 30 different types of medicines free of charge in the near future.
The minister explained the medicines are for coronial diseases that patients must receive for a long time.
Sergeenko explained the initial cost of the program would be 5 million GEL.
The minister stressed the ministry would set “very strong controls” over the quality of the medicines.
“Tests over medicinal quality will be carried out in foreign labs, as Georgia lacks such labs,” Sergeenko stated.
“We will announce a tender for a program for both Georgian and foreign pharmacological companies with equal conditions,” the minister said.
In January 2016, the minister also announced that free vitamins and minerals for thousands of socially vulnerable babies were made available.
He said the free supplements were offered to babies aged between six and 23 months who come from socially vulnerable families.
Sergeenko said there were about 13,000 socially vulnerable children eligible to receive the vitamins and minerals.
