Chechen residents need to go abroad for treatmentTimur Aliyev, North Caucasus – Chechens who are seriously ill have to travel abroad for treatment, announced Musa Akhmadov, Health Minister of the Moscow-backed Chechen government, at a meeting of the Chechen State Council's Commission for Social Issues on November 18 in Grozny.
According to him, about 130,000 people were registered to receive hospital care in Chechnya in 2003, of which 10,000 had to travel abroad for treatment. “That means that every 13th person was not treated in Chechnya,” Akhmadov explained.
These figures include only the Chechens who received treatment from the Health Ministry, but do not include the number of Chechens who were treated in the private sector.
Akhmadov believes the reason lies in the lack of hospitals in Chechnya itself. “After the end of the war, practically all the hospitals had to be rebuilt.”
Thus, medical facilities, which are being restored as part of the Federal Reconstruction Program of Chechnya, can only offer provisional care and are unable to provide the more important treatments that are needed.
Moreover, the funds that have been allocated for total reconstruction of the hospitals are insufficient, he added. (U/E,T)
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