I welcome everyone!
I welcome the opening of this hospital, as it is a very important stage towards having high quality health care in Gori.
As you are aware the second hospital here is going to be modified and improved.
We have huge projects with respect to Gori – beautification of Gori Center and basically its entire rebuilding; turning Gori into one of the touristic centers of Georgia; building of Gori-Jvari highway – this is our long time dream and your request; also the restoration of the Gori stadium and its compliance with the international standards.
You have already seen that the Gori team has shown up and started to make its emblem. It might as well learn to score goals and it will surely do so in a good stadium, I am sure.
Apart from this, we have very significant programs in agriculture.
Our aim is not to leave a single bit of land around Gori uncultivated. It is very important in terms of people having food and the means for existence.
Of course, not everyone will like everything – there are people who do not have the ability to like, even while speaking about the rehabilitation of Gori Center. Yet they are the minority.
There are people who dislike everything, but their own work. Only their career interests such people, I mean the politicians, but for the bulk of population it is very important.
Some do not like the color of facades, while others – the materials. There are also some people who do not like our activities.
There has been something going on in every city of Georgia for the New Year. Many people did not like it, but such activities are in effect promoting the development of tourism.
When I became a President about 120 thousand tourist visited Georgia. We had two million visitors two years ago; last year it nearly reached 3 million, this year we expect 4 million tourists.
All of this happened because of our effort to return money that was stolen from the people in the past. We returned this money through constructed cities, paved roads and improved infrastructure. Everything was made in a fashion that attracts tourists.
The more guests that come to the country, the more money they will spend; hence the more money they spend the more income families will have; The more hotels, cafes, small restaurants, etc will be opened.
The increased income will enable our citizens to give a better education to their children, to have healthcare provided for and improve the conditions in all aspects.
When talking about healthcare, they often say that the hospitals are built by private investments. First of all, the private investors invest in this because people will come here.
This will surely be like this, otherwise it will be pointless.
All of our pensioners have insurance today and these packages cover a lot of services.
Similarly, the socially unprotected people have insurance today in Georgia, also every state official and teacher.
I met a teacher yesterday, who thanks to insurance has had a surgery worth several thousands of GEL for free. Every teacher has insurance.
Consequently, what had been accessible only for billionaires and the corrupted officials of the previous government, is accessible for almost everyone today – at least, for the greatest majority of Georgia’s population. Our aim at this stage is to make modern healthcare accessible for every single one of you.
This is precisely what the idea of equality is all about.
Every citizen of Georgia, no matter where he/she lives has the same opportunities. This is the chief thing what we have achieved.
The enemy had entered Gori in 2008; it is still right by Gori. Certainly, we had a hard time, but look how much has been done while 4 years have not yet passed. Compare if you will, what they are like, what is happening in their capital and what their economy is like.
I am truly amazed, they have so much oil and gas, the whole world infrastructure nourishes it – prices are hiking up on oil and despite this, every fourth person intends to flee from there.
Meanwhile, Georgia is becoming stronger and people in Ukraine, Moldova, Central Asia, and other countries of Caucasus dream not about Russia and the Russian model today, but about what is happening in Georgia.
In our occupant country those people, who fight for Georgia and consider it as an example to follow are recognized as enemies.
For those, who marched across the streets of Gori, nothing can be more humiliating than our steady development.
Our response to their challenge is the resurgence of Gori and turning it into the best city.
We will repair everything that was demolished by the Gori earthquake.
This earthquake destroyed the whole district, but everything needs to be particularly well done now.
It is an instinct of humans to forget everything bad. I thought that the people, who robbed us, disappeared from my memory. Someone has united them all now. These people have even become evil, as they witness the country moving forward for so many years, while they are going more and more backwards.
The Georgian people got rid of these people several years ago and they can never come back again.
Georgia is moving forward and as long as we keep gradually building, making, and creating in the conditions of freedom nothing can stop our progress.
I know very well that there still is great poverty in the country, but we will never take anything for granted and no one will do our job.
I certainly do not like that there are still 150 dining places, where the socially unprotected people dine, but there was none before.
We know it well that 100, even 140 GEL pension is not enough for a family to live fairly, but there was time when it was 7 GEL and that was considered a big deal too.
Right now, even those who had pocketed the 7 GEL want to return to governing…
It is very easy to make a conclusion from this – either Georgian will continue to move forward or everything will be spoiled. Yet, I think that this is impossible, as you cannot halt people and force them to turn their head towards the past.
Our recent past was very unpleasant. People who ruled the country then, have nothing to do in the leadership of the country and should not get their hands on the future of the country.
It is very important as, I repeat once again, the course of our reconstruction and freedom is irreversible.
We are heading on a road, which will inevitable lead our country to unification.
The empire will surely fall. Its demise is inevitable.
We are now at the same stage as David the Builder was. It took him 32 years to gain Tbilisi back. Tbilisi back then is our occupied territories today.
I would like all of us to remember that before David the Builder took the capital of Georgia back, he carried out many reforms, built many things in the territory that was under Georgian control.
Since the epoch of David and Tamar, and in no epoch since has there been so much construction as during the recent years, especially after the war.
I do not know of any country in our region where the construction is at such pace.
Yet, we should not compare ourselves to other countries. We should compare ourselves with our own history.
We are indeed living in the epoch of reconstruction and this epoch is not created by a ruler. I will be the very first one to say that it is not like this.
We are all doing this together because people have learned to work in an independent environment and have felt that this is their country and not Shevardnadze’s cousins.
We had a formal freedom back then and they had it all privatized here.
This country belongs to every single one of us.
Our students are accepted to the universities without bribes today. Some are even dissatisfied with this. You probably remember how much it cost to apply for the Law faculty, or the medical institute. How much it cost to apply for the agricultural university. We all have experienced that…In a number of cases some could even get diplomas without applying.
That is why we are having a shortage of agronomists today; that is why we have a lack of specialists in many other spheres.
Certainly, this was happening in times when people did not have a sense of freedom.
The chief thing that is returning today is the sense of justice.
Although, we are not fully happy with life, we are not happy as parts of our territories are still occupied, but no one robs you today, no one strips money from your hand, no one terrorizes and blackmails you.
It is fair that these hospitals are being built.
It is fair that our children have computers and study foreign languages from the first grade, as it is a guide to their successful future.
It is fair that our cities are renovated. Nothing had been done for many centuries and it would have been very unfair to keep it this way.
It is fair that people follow and trust the programs that change their lives towards the better.
Anything that would have been not in the interest of people, but that of a bunch of crooks, who have brought our country to this condition, would have been unfair. This is the reality.
If we had a good government in the 90s, we would have avoided 90 percent of our problems back then, when the empire was very weak. We are becoming stronger now and Georgian people will accomplish everything. This is what our program is about.
I usually have lots of guests and many of them are stunned by these hospitals. The Dutch Parliamentarians told us that they will send a delegation to share our experience.
Let us recall, that the most widely used term during the 90s was “humanitarian aid” – we have forgotten this today, have we not?
They would send us their worthless needles, ineffective medicines from the third world, the x-ray machines of their grandparents’ times, while we would have to say many thanks in exchange. We had to ask them for help in something else.
All of this has ended. Nothing is brought here as a humanitarian aid anymore. This is a good thing, as we have seen that nothing is good that is free, everything has its price, what is most important is for us to be able to pay for all of this. This is precisely what is most important.
The healthcare system is crippled all across the post soviet space today; one of the EU countries in Eastern Europe is trying to find 100 million USD to save its healthcare sector. This country is several times larger than ours.
There is a gradual investment of about 2 billion that is being made in our healthcare system. This happens because no one here blackmails investors, everything is being done for people here. Everyone knows that the government will do everything for people to come for treatment to these hospitals. If the government were only to care about its family members then a small clinic would be enough in the center of Tbilisi or the Kutaisi auto-factory settlement, where the Parliament is to move soon.
In fact, the Ministry of IDPs and refugees is moving to Gori, which demonstrates as well that this city is not far from Tbilisi at all.