A new agreement will encourage residents of Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia to go to Russia for medical treatment, in a bid to limit one of Tbilisi’s main levers of influence in the territory.
The agreement, signed by Russia’s ministry of health and its Tskhinvali counterpart, will allow South Ossetians with Russian citizenship to use the same medical services available to Russians. Many residents now travel to neighboring Georgia for health care, giving Tbilisi a means of exerting soft power over the breakaway territory.
“Before the agreement, our citizens could hardly get state-of-the-art medical care in Russia” said Alan Kozonov, chairman of Tskhinvali’s de-facto parliamentary committee. “Now, Russia’s medical services will be available to residents of [South Ossetia] with Russian citizenship.”
Kozonov also noted a recent spike in South Ossetia residents heading to Georgia for treatment. In 2012, 63 individuals went to Tbilisi and by 2016 it had grown to 260 – a relatively large figure for a region of just 53,000 officially, and in reality probably much smaller.
“The system of compulsory medical insurance will, if not completely eradicate, at least neutralize the process” Kozonov added.
South Ossetia, along with the Black Sea region of Abkhazia, broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s. Since Georgia’s 2008 war with Russia, Moscow has recognized the independence of both regimes and continues to subsidize them.
Since 2008, South Ossetia has failed to build a modern medical facility despite government promises to prioritize health care.
