Tbilisi Infectious Diseases Hospital chair may quit “due to slander” as clinics accused of misappropriation of 1 bln GEL in state funds for COVID patients

Director General of Tbilisi Infectious Diseases Hospital Tengiz Tsertsvadze says that he may resign “due to slander and unfounded accusations” that clinics had misappropriated one billion GEL in state funds allocated for COVID patients in 2020 and 2021.

 

Georgian Health Minister Zurab Azarashvili stated last week that the budget had to pay “for empty beds,” noting that details and the names of those “behind the illegality” would be made public soon.

 

In his recent Facebook post Tsertsvadze said that he had not received even one GEL as a bonus during the pandemic to manage the process, noting that he had refused to receive even the legal incomes he deserved.

 

“They are trying to accuse me of participating in the misappropriation of one billion GEL allocated for the management of COVID together with others, while during the whole pandemic my income from neither side has increased by even one GEL. And generally, the whole country knows that I have never received even legal incomes from any of my patients during my long medical career,” Tsertsvadze said.

 

He dismissed allegations that the management of the pandemic was poor in Georgia.

 

“They are trying to accuse us that the management of coronavirus patients in Georgia was very bad, that we were manipulating the number of patients and beds, that we deliberately killed COVID patients in clinics and that we were making a lot of money with all this. In fact, managing the flow of COVID patients in Georgia and their treatment was one of the best in the world,” Tsertsvadze suggested.

 

He stated that “I know it is hard to escape undeserved allegations,” stating that the part of the public had the same attitude towards the Hepatitis C Elimination Programme “which has saved more than 80,000 lives in the country.”

 

Georgia has had 1,655,221 confirmed cases of coronavirus since April 2020.

 

1,637,293 of the 1,655,221 individuals have recovered, while 16,811 have died from the virus.