Uzbekistan has expanded its healthcare infrastructure, tripled the volume of medical services and increased the range of complex procedures performed domestically over the past decade, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev announced at a meeting with medical and pharmaceutical workers on October 27.
Mirziyoyev congratulated healthcare professionals on their upcoming professional holiday and thanked them for their work.
“A person needs health, first of all, to see the happiness of his family, to work honestly, to achieve his dreams, and to live a meaningful life. Therefore, we have identified the preservation of human health as one of the most important areas of our reforms,” the president said.
Over the past decade, Uzbekistan has opened new clinics and hospitals serving 10mn people and added 58,000 hospital beds. The expansion of modern medical facilities and the private healthcare sector has tripled the volume of medical services, according to the president.
More than 100 types of medical procedures that were previously performed abroad are now available in Uzbekistan, including treatment for congenital heart defects, organ transplants, robotic surgery and complex brain operations.
Mirziyoyev also highlighted the digitalization of healthcare, which is being extended to private clinics and pharmacies. He added that the system would soon be expanded with artificial intelligence capabilities to assist doctors and nurses.
“We will soon further enrich this system with artificial intelligence capabilities and turn it into a real assistant for doctors and nurses,” he said.
The president also outlined plans to increase domestic pharmaceutical production, with a target of meeting 70% of the country’s pharmaceutical production needs through local capacity.
In recent years, 330 new production facilities worth $1bn have been commissioned. The Tashkent BioPharma City cluster has been established, alongside pharmaceutical free economic zones in the Andijan, Namangan, Jizzakh and Tashkent regions.
Projects worth $1.2bn are also being implemented in these pharmaceutical zones.