MAY 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Several hundred people were poisoned after eating ice cream in the Shahrian district of Andijan, in Uzbekistan’s Ferghana Valley, media reported. Hospitals said that they admitted 182 people into intensive care for poisoning. There have been, so far, no reports of any deaths.
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(News report from Issue No. 329, published on May 20 2017)
APRIL 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Dariga Nazarbayeva, the eldest daughter of President Nursultan Nazarbayev and tipped by some analysts as his successor, has proposed boosting state investment into sport by 30%, media reported. Ms Nazarbayeva is now a senator. She had previously been a deputy PM.
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(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)
MAY 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a draft law to be voted on by Kazakhstan’s parliament, candidates for future presidential elections will have to undergo a medical test. Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev pushed through a raft of tweaks to the constitution earlier this year which he said were designed to shift power to parliament from the presidency in a move that makes Kazakhstan more democratic. His detractors have said that the changes tighten his control over power.
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(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)
APRIL 16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov signed a decree that will ban all cigarette smoking by 2025, making good on his promise to turn Turkmenistan into the world’s first smoking-free country.
Mr Berdymukhamedov has already banned selling cigarettes, making a show of burning piles of them.
There were no specific details of what Mr Berdymukhamedov had in mind with his ban on smoking but the move does fit with his drive to promote health and exercise in the country. He has starred in weight- lifting videos and has been depicted out jogging.
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(News report from Issue No. 325, published on April 17 2017)
ALMATY, APRIL 7 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Two deaths in hospitals in Almaty this year have unnerved the normally phlegmatic residents of Kazakhstan’s most populous city.
Investigations have been launched into the death of 26-year- old Aleksey Gubenko who died in March at a private hospital while being treated for sinusitis and Yerzhan Kulbayev who died in a state-run hospital in January after having his kidney removed, apparently illegally to pay off a loan.
Trust in Kazakhstan’s healthcare system is waning, whether it is private or state. An opinion poll in January by the demos.kz website showed that 65% of people rated the healthcare at three out of five or lower and 61% of the respondents said that the healthcare staff were not competent.
For 24-year-old Leila, an accountant, news of the two deaths in hospital did not come as a surprise.
“I do not have any illusions regarding Kazakhstan’s healthcare system, so I am not surprised with these cases,” she said. “Obviously, I do not trust our doctors and state hospitals have big queues of people waiting too.”
Sergey, a taxi driver, said that it was better not to be sick in Kazakhstan and to avoid doctors.
“We are all mortal, you never know what will happen to you in half an hour,” he said.
“It is just better not to be sick and be less engaged with the healthcare system.”
Poor morale among staff and underfunding have characterised Kazakhstan’s healthcare system. In 2015, Almas Kurmanov, the then head of budget at the ministry of health told media that the healthcare budget needed to be doubled or tripled. He said that Kazakhstan was spending $254/person on health compared to an average in the OECD of $2,400/person.
Earlier this year too, five senior executives, including the CEO, at the state-run medicine distribution company SK-Pharmacy were sacked and arrested for bribe-taking.
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
APRIL 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — London-listed Georgia Healthcare Group said that it had finished the first phase of its redevelopment project on the Sunrise Hospital in Tbilisi and that it would partially re-opened this month. The 332-bed private hospital will be fully open by the end of the year. Georgia Healthcare Group is the largest private medical provider in Georgia. The redevelopment of the Sunrise Hospital is part of its plan to buy up and renovating underperforming hospitals.
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
MARCH 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Another male corpse was found in the Caspian Sea, possibly one of the missing men from an oil platform that collapsed into the Azerbaijani sector of the sea that killed 9 people in December. Bodies of the dead men have been washing up across the Caspian Sea coastline. The year before, at least 30 people had died when a storm caused a fire at a Caspian Sea oil rig.
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(News report from Issue No. 321, published on March 20 2017)
MARCH 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s parliament debated a bill that could ban smoking in public places, media reported, the first step towards imposing tougher rules over smoking and cigarette advertising in a country notoriously fond of the habit. Azerbaijan’s neighbours in the South Caucasus, and also in Central Asia, have already imposed some restrictions on smoking. Smoking is currently banned in Azerbaijan in sports facilities, educational area and healthcare buildings.
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(News report from Issue No. 320, published on March 13 2017)
FEB. 21 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgians MPs are considering strengthening new laws which limit smoking in public places, media reported. A law being brought in from July will force restaurants and hotels to ensure that a certain proportion of their floor space is designated to be no smoking. But some MPs are now arguing that this law does not go far enough and that a blanket ban on smoking in public places is needed.
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(News report from Issue No. 318, published on Feb.24 2017)
FEB. 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia Healthcare’s shares surged 8.4% to near an all-time high of 379/$1 after earnings results showed that it had tripled its pretax profit in the fourth quarter of last year thanks to organic growth and acquisitions.
It also said that by the end of 2018, it expects to have doubled its revenues compared to 2015.
Long a favourite for investors looking to invest directly into the South Caucasus, Georgia Healthcare stock gives them a slice of the growing Georgian private healthcare sector.
The only downside of the earnings results was a pretax loss for its insurance division. Still, analysts were bullish. Jefferies increased its target price on Georgia Healthcare to 435p from 420p. Numis Securities stuck with its target price of 420p.
The other big mover of the week was KAZ Minerals, the Kazakhstan-focused copper producer, which finished up 5.7% at 559p. On Tuesday its shares had peaked at 592p, its highest level for nearly four years.
Copper prices have recovered since they started to fall in mid- 2015. KAZ Minerals also announced the start-up of new production in Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)