Chief Pediatrician: Azerbaijan has seen revolutionary changes in medicine over past 10-15 years

How would you comment on a recent trend in Azerbaijan to take children abroad for treatment?

Unfortunately, such a trend does exist in the country. In fact, Azerbaijan conducts operations unprecedented in our region. The Thalassemia Centre in Azerbaijan has no precedent in terms of modern equipment.

Cardiac surgeries have been conducting in Azerbaijan for over ten years now. Children's Heart Surgery Center will open very soon. Kidney transplant will be carried out in Azerbaijan in the next few days.

All these prove that Azerbaijan has seen truly revolutionary changes in the field of medicine over the past 10-15 years. As a result, at present there is no reason to assert that some forms of diseases cannot be treated in Azerbaijan or treated worse than in any other country.

Then why some people take children abroad for treatment?

Such a trend exists in most developed countries, in particular, the United States, where wealthy people take out their children, relatives and friends for treatment to other countries.

Finally, skillful advertising of health care in some countries attract various citizens of the world, including Azerbaijanis. Every disease is cured in Azerbaijan not worse than in the countries with strong advertising.

And how Azerbaijan citizen identify a good and a bad doctor?
 
Of course, it is almost impossible to get an answer to this question in advance. But in my opinion, best experts work in the public health system. I do not want to say anything bad about private clinics, but the fact is that the aim of their opening is to make money, whereas the medical institutions that operate in the public health system are run by the state, which has different goals and level of work.

Do medicines prescribed by doctors always help patients to recover and do not pursue profit by receiving interest on sale of of these drugs?

You have raised the problem number one of the domestic medicine. Unfortunately, there is an entrenched view in Azerbaijan that physician’s prescribing large number of modern medicines, shows his/her high level of his professionalism. This is absolutely wrong. In particular, introduction of methods of evidence-based medicine indicates that the widely-used drugs are not only not always effective, but sometimes are harmful to human health. Therefore, modern scholars and luminaries of medicine recommend to use the minimum number of medications, and only those which do no harm to body.

I advise those citizens who are prescribed to take a number of new, modern pharmaceuticals to consult doctors of public health facilities before buying them. They are more responsible in this matter than doctors in private clinics. I say this because sometimes doctors in private clinics prescribe these drugs simply to earn.

Doctors in private clinics do this by signing contracts with representatives of companies that that market various kinds of drugs in our market. So, doctors prescribe medicines of precisely these firms.

The Ministry of Health of Azerbaijan does a great work to combat this problem. But it requires time to address the problem in full. Finally, I once again advise citizens to remember: the doctor, prescribing a large number of drugs is a bad doctor. Especially if he/she subscribes to a large number of drugs to children who should not consume drugs in large quantities in any case.