“Today, in the morning, the patient weighed 69.7 kilograms, but if this continues, tomorrow he will be 68, the day after, he will be 65. He moves with the help of aids, he is mostly lying down,” said the director of Vivamedi clinic, Zurab Chkhaidze, referring to the former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili's health condition.
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According to Chkhaidze, Mikheil Saakashvili is dissatisfied with the ongoing processes and has reduced his food intake in recent days.
“We always talked about the fact that he does not eat in the amount, with the recommended calorie intake. In these last days, especially after yesterday, he has completely reduced his food intake, refused to take nutritional supplements, and since the clinic is doing everything to improve his health condition, to maintain his vital functions, infusion therapy was offered, which is necessary for his body, for the functioning of his organs, to avoid any complications but he categorically refused. I want to say that if this goes on, of course, his condition will get worse.
I would like to call on the family members, Mrs. Giuli, to convince him to undergo treatment, to follow the recommendations of the doctors. In other cases, this can lead to a fatal outcome,” Chkhaidze told journalists.
On a question whether Mikheil Saakashvili is not willing or cannot take the food, the head of Vivamedi answered that “he does not take it”: “He reduced the amount of food that he used to take. We have outlined before that, when he gets the right amount of food, he is fine. There is no difficulty in the function of swallowing, no problem, no obstacle. He himself declared he is dissatisfied with the current processes and expresses his protest in this way , so that thecondition worsenes and then he may actually be transferred to the intensive care unit”.
According to Zurab Chkhaidze, the coronavirus, which was diagnosed to Mikheil Saakashvili on January 24, is not an obstacle for eating. The doctor says that the ex-president has a mild form of Covid and “does not even need additional oxygen supply at this stage”.
Mikheil Saakashvili has been in the Vivamedi Clinic, a contractor of the Special Penitentiary Service, since May 2022. According to the conclusion of the Empathy Center and the International Medical Expert Commission, Saakashvili was practically healthy before his arrest, but now coma and death are expected. According to experts, Saakashvili needs to be immediately transferred to a third-class university multidisciplinary clinic in the USA and/or the European Union for diagnosis and treatment.
On December 1, the lawyers applied to the Tbilisi City Court with a motion to release Saakashvili from his sentence or postpone its serving. The court has been considering the case for almost two months and has not made a decision, yet.
Mikheil Saakashvili, who is a citizen of Ukraine, was arrested on October 1, 2021, the day before the local self-government elections in Tbilisi. He was found guilty and has been sentenced to six years in prison for the cases of pardoning the employees of the state security service of Georgia convicted for the murder of Sandro Girgvliani and the beating of Member of Parliament Valeri Gelashvili. Saakashvili is also accused in the cases of Imedi television company, raiding the protest action of November 7, illegally taking possession of Patarkatsishvili's property, and embezzling 9 024 367 GEL belonging to the Special State Protection Service of Georgia. The third president pleads not guilty and says that the processes are politically motivated.
