Ivane Chkhaidze, director of Iashvili Paediatric Tertiary Referral Hospital, hopes that the government will review the tariffs provided for by the universal healthcare program before implementing the new funding system.
According to him, the existing tariff has been adopted ten years ago and is no longer relevant in this situation, so 100 hospitals addressed the Minister of Health Zurab Azarashvili with a joint letter on this issue.
"Our letter describes the situation created in the country and compares the financial changes that have taken place since 2013. Almost 10 years have passed since the universal health care program was launched, and the tariffs that have been in place since then certainly need to be reviewed. Many things have changed, including medicine prices and electricity tariffs. These numbers are outlined in this letter. I think that raising this issue and intensively discussing it is a measure to be held in a working format, which has been going on recently. We hoped and we still hope that this topic will be agreed upon and discussed because it is really very difficult to successfully implement this program without such serious changes", Chkhaidze says.
According to him, he did not discuss the issue of tariff revision with Health Minister Zurab Azarashvili, although he discussed this issue with the deputy ministers several times.
"We had certain expectations that a decision would be made in July. Therefore, this is the most important thing for us. This is not a hasty decision made after a few meetings. This is really serious work that has been done during this period, and still we think that another meeting with the participation of the minister will be supposedly necessary once again. It is quite possible that this meeting will be productive because we do not think that we are asking for something special or that it is such an issue that cannot be fulfilled", says Chkhaidze.
The medical director of Iashvili Paediatric Tertiary Referral Hospital does not rule out that certain clinics may leave the universal healthcare program if they refuse to revise the tariffs, but he thinks that there will be no such radical steps on the part of the clinics and meeting with the minister will be held. It is possible that a single clinic will do the same, but it will not have a systemic character," Chkhaidze says.
