New Healthcare Minister Speaks Out Against ‘Political Forms’

There have been cases where doctors and other staff at some public hospitals in Tbilisi have been asked to fill in special forms indicating their political orientation, Healthcare Minister Sandro Kvitashvili said on February 11.

“Here is the form,” he said at a news conference, showing a form, “which contains several sections, one of which is for the name of the director of the hospital… then comes one for ‘political orientation of staff’ with another section for the total number of staff and a separate section – ‘number of our supporters.’ There is also a section for the name of ‘an influential doctor’ and ‘our supporter’ and ‘opposition supporter.’”

“I want to make it clear that this is not an official document,” the minister said. “Requests to fill in this type of form are not coming from any state agency. The Healthcare Ministry is absolutely against this and I want to ask all medical centers in Georgia not to fill in these forms and inform us if someone tries to distribute them. No one needs it.”

Kvitashvili, who was invited to join the new cabinet by PM Lado Gurgenidze, said he did not know who was distributing the forms in the hospitals.

State employees, including teachers in public schools, were asked to fill in similar forms by ruling party activists on the eve of the January 5 presidential election. Ruling party leaders, including Parliamentary Speaker Nino Burjanadze, publicly condemned the practice and said that it could have been an initiative of lower level party management, as no orders of that type were coming from the leadership. Ruling party leaders only commented publicly at the time following opposition accusations that the authorities were mounting pressure on state employees ahead of the election.

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