The Health Care and Social Issues Committee held a verbal hearing on the Thematic Inquiry conducted under the control of the enforcement of normative acts, which deals with the “2009 Draft Law on the Effective Implementation of the Law of Georgia on Drug and Pharmaceutical Activity - Access to Quality Pharmaceutical Products in Georgia”.

The verbal hearing was public, which, in addition to the members of the Committee's Thematic Inquiry Group, was also attended by the representatives of Government Agencies, NGOs, and field experts.
According to the First Deputy Chair of the Health Care and Social Issues Committee, Dimitri Khundadze, despite the different challenges, the main priority for the Government today is the quality health care service for the population.

However, problems remain in this area, primarily with the provision of quality medicines to the population.

"Recent studies also indicate that the health care still retains the highest indicator of satisfaction, but problems still remain, mainly due to access to medications, its quality and, more importantly, the price. The cost of medicines is constantly increasing and I think that the legislation needs to be revised in this regard”, - Dimitri Khundadze commented urging the audience to have an honest discussion about the problems.

According to him, 2009 reform of the Law of Georgia on Drug and Pharmaceutical Activity, despite certain positive results, still needs to be reviewed and evaluated.

As the Chair of the Health Care and Social Issues Committee, Akaki Zoidze added, the most pressing issue for our citizens is the quality and availability of medicines.

Pursuant to him, notwithstanding the research, inflation for medicines far outstrips inflation in the economy in general thus making medicines to be one of the biggest problems for the health care system. However, as Akaki Zoidze pointed out, the important legislative reform implemented in 2009 was aimed at increasing the geographical and financial accessibility to safe and quality medicines for the population and increasing competition in the market.

"Through the universal health care program, we have managed to eliminate or mitigate the catastrophic burden on health care costs. However, in the case of medications, this has unfortunately failed despite the introduction of a program of chronic illnesses, which is a very good step forward. While this program requires significant qualitative changes, it is important to extend its functionality to the drugs which are covered by this initiative. Perhaps the financing system will also need to be modified”, - Akaki Zoidze commented.

As per him, this year will be the main determinant for the Committee to elaborate on this issue.
“In general, the main issue in health care will be the access to quality medicines and we should be able to address this problem by legislative changes or by-laws. Understandably enough, we may not solve the problem within a year, but we must formulate a policy that will enable us to settle down this issue in the nearest future”, - the Chair of the Health Care and Social Issues Committee noted.

Akaki Zoidze hoped that interesting proposals will be presented and finally the ways of resolving the issue will be agreed on. 

In the ambit of the verbal hearing, the interested individuals presented their opinions to the members of the Thematic Inquiry Group for further discussions. As was mentioned, the total cost of medicines is high.

Studies confirm that about one in five people suffer from catastrophic health care costs, 70% of which is spent on medicines. 726 million GEL is spent on medicines for chronic diseases. Almost everyone agreed that the situation in the pharmaceutical market is not favorable, since if geographical access to medicines is more or less resolved, financial access remains a major problem.

It was also suggested that specific legislative changes to bring the current regulations in harmonization with the EU requirements will be needed.

According to Akaki Zoidze, it is not the purpose of strict regulations but the need to find a golden mean in order to significantly reduce the cost of medicines.

It was decided that there would be one more verbal hearing before the final decision is taken.
Following the inquiry, based on the favorable experiences, the Committee will draw up a report and recommendations on the issue of public accessibility to the quality medicinal products.

The Thematic Inquary project is supported by the USAID's Democratic Governance Initiative and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.