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Treatment Denied to Patents

December 2, 2008

Shorena Kakabadze, Kutaisi

The Interventional Medical Center of West Georgia refuses to treat the patients who need scheduled medical examination and in spite of them having medical insurance. The reason for this is that ALDAGI BCI, the insurance company has 350, 000 GEL in debt to the Medical Centre.

The Interventional Medical Center has been operating in Kutaisi since January 16, 2006. The hospital has more than enough patients and refuses to treat patents that show ALDAGI BCI insurance coverage because of the financial arrears.

“It is impossible to work under such a situation. We do not receive money from the insurance company in time. We will have to dismiss tens of hospital staff members and shut down several medical departments as a result of the financial crisis we face because of their lack of payment. We expect that we will have even more difficulties and this will end in bad results,” says Kakha Nuralidze, director of Interventional Medical Center of West Georgia.

ALDAGI BCI denies all allegations of Medical Center director. The insurance company representatives say that the conflict between them and the Medical Center is caused by another reason.

“Our insurance company made investment in Kutaisi several months ago and bought Kutaisi St. Nicolas Surgery Center. This hospital started offering patents the same services the Interventional Medical Center of West Georgia had been offering before. The patients are content with the service in ALDAGI BCI hospital. As a consequence of this Medical Center lost many patients. I think this fact irritated the director of the Medical Center,” said Nikoloz Gamkrelidze, general director of ALDAGI BCI.

Kakha Nularidze said that the Interventional Medical Center is the best hospital in Georgia.

Kakha Nularidze: “The operations which could not have been made in other hospitals were made in our hospital. This hospital was built because there was no hospital with high technologies in west Georgia. The west Georgian people who did not receive qualified treatment needed a unique medical center like ours. We will not allow anyone to interfere with the work of the Center.”

The Medical Center had many patients from the beginning but the problem was that the prices were rather high at this hospital. The hospital administration says that the prices are high in the Interventional Medical Center because they provide high- quality service.

The ALDAGI BCI hospital has many patients as well. The hospital administration says that they cooperate not only with ALDAGI BCI insurance company (which is the owner of the hospital) but also with all insurance companies. They claim that all patients are content with their service.

Kutaisi Healthcare Service says that ALDAGI BCI will pay the debt in 3-4 days. They say the responsible state agencies will strengthen control over the insurance companies in order to avoid such problems in the future.

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