Tag Archives: health

Turkmen President reinforces cigarette ban

NOV. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov reprimanded the country’s interior minister, Isgender Mulikov, for ineffectively combating the illegal sale of cigarettes. Shortly after the presidential remarks, which aired on state TV, local reporters said that cigarettes disappeared from the shelves of several stores in Ashgabat. Opposition website Alternative News of Turkmenistan said the shopkeepers were responding to a direct order from the ministry. In January, Turkmenistan introduced an informal ban on the sale of cigarettes.

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Two workers die on construction sites in Georgia

OCT. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Two construction workers died in two separate incidents on building sites in Tbilisi within a couple of days, highlighting the often poor levels of health and safety in Georgia. The first man to die fell from a building. The second died from a suspected heart attack. Georgia is going through something of a construction boom at the moment.

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(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Kazakh President returns back to work

OCT. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh president returned to work after three days off because he had apparently caught a cold, his press office said. Part of Mr Nazarbayev’s image is his fitness and virility and it is rare for him to admit to taking any time off work. The cold apparently caused Mr Nazarbayev to skip a meeting of the FSU-focused CSTO group in Yerevan.

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(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)

Kyrgyz President says he had heart attack

OCT. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev said that he had had a heart attack while en route to New York for a UN meeting and that he was back at work after undergoing medical care. On Sept. 19, Mr Atambayev cancelled the trip to the UN Annual Assembly after suffering chest pains during a layover in Turkey. He later flew to Russia for medical care before returning to Bishkek at the weekend.

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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Azerbaijani woman has wrong leg amputated

JUNE 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — An Azerbaijani woman who went into hospital to have a gangrenous leg amputated woke up after the operation to find that the surgeon had cut off the wrong one.

Tarlan Aliyeva, 82, discovered that instead of the inflamed left leg, the right one had been cut off. The surgeon who performed the operation couldn’t be found. He had fled the hospital.

“The doctors did this to me,” a tearful Ms Aliyeva, now a double amputee, was shown on a Youtube video as saying.

“The doctors did that to me because of money. See, they cut it from the root. They are not doctors. If they were, I wouldn’t be in this situation now.”

The case has gripped Azerbaijan with many people reacting with anger at the incompetence of, and corruption in the Azerbaijani medical profession.

“By law, most medical services are free of charge but in reality, you can never get a proper service without bribing,” Ilkin, a 38-year old IT specialist from Baku, told the Conway Bulletin

Reacting to the news, the health ministry has established a special commission to investigate the case jointly with law enforcement authorities.

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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)

Two people dies of anthrax in Kazakhstan

JUNE 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Two people died in Karaganda, central Kazakhstan, after an out- break of anthrax poisoning. Local hospitals reported as many as 73 people were being monitored for exposure. Two days after the out- break, Kazakh PM Karim Massimov said the situation is under control. Medical research says Kazakhstan has some of the highest reported human anthrax incidence and mortality rates in the world.

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(News report from Issue No. 286, published on June 24 2016)

Chinese company opens hospital near Georgian capital

TBILISI, JUNE 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hualing Georgia, a private Chinese company, opened a 100-bed hospital near Tbilisi, increasing its commitment to a new urban development and entering the crowded healthcare services market.

The new hospital cost 4.5m lari ($2.1m) to build and is located at the Tbilisi Sea New City, which is being built on the shores of an artificial lake near Georgia’s capital city. Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili opened the hospital and highlighted the significance of the project.

“This hospital is really an important project for this district. I wish good health to everyone but it’s important to have this type of medical facility close to where you live, and in this district there was no hospital before,” Mr Kvirikashvili said at the inauguration ceremony.

Hualing has invested heavily in Georgia. In October 2015, the company built a new hotel Tbilisi Sea New City. In May, it also said it will build an elevator factory in Kutaisi.

The healthcare sector in Georgia is dominated by London-listed Georgia Healthcare Group (GHG), which controls around 27% of hospital beds. In May, it bought GPC, a drugmaker that controls a 15% share of the pharmaceutical market. BGEO, a holding company that owns Bank of Georgia, owns 65% of GHG.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

China to invest in Georgian healthcare

JUNE 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Chinese government said it will inject a $9m investment into the Georgian healthcare system, which will improve medical infrastructure in two peripheral regions. China’s vice-PM Zhang Gaoli said the investment is part of the country’s Silk Road strategy. In 2014, the Chinese government invested $4m in a similar programme.

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(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)

Stock market: Georgia Healthcare Group

MAY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — London-listed Georgia Healthcare Group posted a perky 33% increase in revenues in Q1 2016, sending the Group’s share price up by 5.9% on May 17. In its brief history on the London Stock Exchange, GHG seems to have entered into its best period so far with share prices now firmly above £2. This week, it gained 16.7% to close at 231p on Thursday.

It had started trading in November 2015 at 170p/share, giving early investors a 35% return.

The company was also bullish about its acquisitions in Georgia’s healthcare market.

“We have just completed the acquisition of GPC one of the largest retail and wholesale pharmacy chains in Georgia,” GHG CEO Nikoloz Gamkrelidze said in a statement. “This acquisition supports our desire to be the leading integrated provider in all areas of the [Georgian] healthcare ecosystem.”

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Georgia Healthcare Group posts strong Q1 results

MAY 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s largest healthcare company, Georgia Healthcare Group (GHG), posted a 33% rise in revenue in the first quarter of 2016, highlighting rising demand from Georgians for private medical services.

Revenues increased to 71.7m lari (around $33m) in the first quarter of 2016, a jump of a third from 2015. The company attributed the positive results to its ability to grab market share in the healthcare sector.

And this is set to grow, according to GHG, which bought Georgian pharmaceutical retailer and wholesaler GPC earlier in May.

“We are clearly on track to deliver our target of more than doubling 2015 healthcare services revenues by 2018,” CEO Nikoloz Gamkrelidze said in a statement.

GHG also positively reviewed the recent tax reforms that the Georgian government put in place for next year. Under the new rules, undistributed profits will no longer be subject to a 15% profit tax. The government has said that the new tax rules are designed to encourage companies to invest, giving the economy a boost. In the short-term, though, the new tax code will reduce government income.

“We expect this amendment to take effect for our healthcare services earnings on 1 January 2017, and this is expected to significantly reduce the Group’s effective tax rate from 2017 onwards,” Mr Gamkrelidze said.

The healthcare sector in Georgia has proven resilient during the current economic downturn. This economic slowdown, which has hit the entire Central Asia and South Caucasus region, forced Georgia’s lari currency to fall by 30% in the past 18 months and has slowed GDP growth.

Last November, GHG listed its shares on the London Stock Exchange.

BGEO Group, a London-based holding company that owns Bank of Georgia, owns a 65.07% stake in GHG.

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)