MINSK, December 22 Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko stated that EU countries are delaying the supply of medical equipment to the country, although sanctions should not apply to the humanitarian sector and the healthcare system.
“We are observing a serious, to put it mildly, delay in organizing the supply of medical equipment from the EU countries to the Republic of Belarus. Although initially everything was positioned that any sanctions or restrictions would not affect the humanitarian sphere, medicine, medicines, medical products. This is not at all the case. In this “, in my opinion, a certain duplicity of the relevant political-forming circles is manifested (in European countries — ed.),” Golovchenko said in a video commentary published on the Telegram channel of the government of the republic.
He believes that such “installations follow a political line.” “We note this fact and move on (in the development of the healthcare system in the country — ed.). Of course, we hope for our doctors and scientists that this direction will only develop,” the prime minister added.
In particular, Golovchenko noted that self-sufficiency with complex systems in the field of traumatology and orthopedics indicates a high level of development of this area of medicine in the country. According to him, work in this area «was planned in advance.» “We developed it on time, found funding, the Union State helped, and the budget helped. We got the most important result — the health of children and adults. If we didn’t have these spinal systems, domestic endoprostheses, then the situation would be completely different now,” — said the Prime Minister of Belarus.
At the end of April last year, Golovchenko announced difficulties in purchasing medical equipment against the backdrop of Western sanctions. According to him, when trying to buy medical equipment and spare parts for high-tech devices in the West, Minsk received “evasive answers.” Belarus was also forced to reconsider the logistics of supplying medicines and raw materials for their production against the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko previously set the task of diversifying the supply of medicines to the country in the context of Western sanctions against Minsk in order to prevent a shortage of them on the domestic market.
In November, Golovchenko said that, against the backdrop of Western sanctions, the republic was able to find an alternative to medical equipment from Western suppliers who had left the market, replacing them with products of Belarusian, Russian and Chinese production.