Tbilisi Mayor announces full City Hall financing for liver and bone marrow transplantation for patients

Kakha Kaladze, the Mayor of Tbilisi and the Secretary General of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Wednesday said the City Hall would fully finance transplantation of liver and bone marrow for patients.

The programme will finance treatment with the full ₾120,000 ($44,863) cost instead of the previous, partial ₾70,000 ($26,170) coverage per patient.

The Mayor said the “financial burden” on families to cover the remaining amount had been “heavy” and added “many” could not afford the costs.

Accordingly, we made a decision to finance the mentioned direction by 100 percent. Since the beginning of the programme, 45 cases of liver transplantation have been financed in Georgia, and the City Hall spent ₾3.15 million ($1.17mln) on this. We are ready to support everyone, if necessary”, he said.

Kaladze added the Healthcare and Social Services Municipal Service was providing funding for pre-transplant studies, high-dose chemotherapy, three types of transplants and post-management for bone marrow transplantation.

The Tbilisi City Hall has provided an amount from ₾10,000 ($3,738) to ₾235,000 (87,858) to finance each patient. Since the beginning of the programme in 2015, 1,074 cases have been financed with up to ₾60 million transferred to clinics in Georgia and abroad”, he added.

The Mayor emphasised the City Hall’s commitment to “supporting everyone in need” and pledged the existing programmes would “continue for as long as necessary".