In 2023, for the first time, the Public Defender’s Office of Georgia monitored measures aimed at preventing and controlling the spread of infections associated with medical services in certain medical institutions and reflected the monitoring results in a special report "Monitoring Results relating to the Implementation of Infection Prevention and Control Measures in 9 Inpatient Medical Facilities".

The representatives of the Public Defender, together with an invited expert, doctor-epidemiologist, evaluated a number of legislative and subordinate acts, analyzed international documents, and requested relevant information from the authorized agencies. In addition, in the second half of 2023, monitoring visits were made to 9 inpatient medical institutions in different municipalities of Georgia.

During the monitoring of medical institutions, individual violations were revealed relating to the infrastructure and process necessary for the prevention and control of infection. In particular:

The monitoring showed that there was no systemic monitoring of the observance of hand hygiene measures in any of the inspected medical facilities. In 5 out of the inspected institutions, one of the most acute problems was the failure of the ventilation systems in the high and very high-risk zones, which increases the risk of spreading the infection through the air from the isolation storage spaces. Sterilization space was mostly not properly arranged. Malfunctions of ventilation and air-conditioning systems, violations of the principles of zoning of "clean" and "dirty" spaces, and non-observance of requirements of the use of personal protective equipment by personnel when moving between zones were also revealed.

Gross violations of the instrument pre-sterilization process were detected in 5 institutions. The condition of sterilized instruments did not meet the established standards either, which affects the quality of sterilization of reusable surgical and other medical instruments/materials; The requirements for washing, storing and using medical linens were also neglected.

In 4 institutions, violations were revealed relating to the integrity of the surfaces of the medical infrastructure and waste management. In addition, the monitoring made it clear that the needs of a specific medical institution are not considered in the training modules and programmes of the majority of medical institutions, they are superficial and formal in nature.