Resistant Tuberculosis’s Treatment in Zugdidi Hospital

Pilot project is being implemented in the Zugdidi District tuberculosis Hospital. International organization “Doctors without Boundaries” treats sick people within the project.

The hospital was founded in 1988 and is the only anti-tuberculosis centre, where the treatment of resistant tuberculosis is implemented. According to the director of the hospital, Zaza Dgebuadze, the treatment of the resistant tuberculosis was impossible because of expensive medicines.

“Resistant tuberculosis is one of the complicated forms of the disease. The medicines of the second level are used for its treatment, which are very expensive. Most of such medicines are not registered in Georgia and they were not used during the treatment because of their high price. Unfortunately, those sick people were doomed to die,” said Dgebuadze.

We asked why the international organization shoes exactly the Zugdidi hospital to implement the project; if the reason was particularly grave situation in the area or any other reasons. Dgebuadze said that “The organization Doctors without Boundaries carried out a survey in the whole country. They did not choose Samegrelo region because of particularly grave situation. The survey showed that nearly forty patients are supposed to be accepted at the hospital every year. So they chose our hospital because of good management. We were lucky and the project implementation started with too small fund.”
The Zugdidi Hospital is ready to accept fifty patients altogether, 35 out of who can be resistant patients. The rest fifteen are patients with ordinary tuberculosis. At present twenty-five patients are being treated at Zugdidi Hospital. Doctors without Boundaries pay the expenses of their treatment.

In parallel to the pilot project, national program for tuberculosis is being carried out at the Zugdidi Hospital that started in 1996 which is funded from the state budget.

Any patient, who is ill with tuberculosis, can receive free medical treatment. “When a person applies to the hospital with similar symptoms, we start medical examinations, laboratory researches and everything is free for the patient. If a person is sick with ordinary tuberculosis s/he can involve the state program, but if s/he has resistant form of the disease he is placed in the resistant department of the hospital,” said Dgebuadze.

As for the financing the patients, it depends on the sort of treatment. Stationary treatment is funded from the Joint Social Aid Fund and the price for a bed is 13,70GEL. In the case of dispensary treatment of the sick person the dispensary is funded.

Selection of the patients to involve the pilot project is carrying out on the basis of medical and geographical principles. A patient should have a complicated form of the tuberculosis and must be a resident of the Samegrelo Region in order to be treated at the Zugdidi Hospital.

Three meals are served for patients for free during a day, besides the medicines. According to doctors, the food consists of calories that are necessary for the sick people.

After Zugdidi the project will be financed from Global Fund and will be implemented in Tbilisi.

Nana Sajaia, Zugdidi