Davit Sergeenko

Davit Sergeenko (Georgian: დავით სერგეენკო; born 25 September 1963) is a Georgian physician and healthcare administrator, serving as Georgia's Minister of Health, Labor, and Social Affairs since 25 October 2012. On 13 June 2018 he was named Minister of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees in the cabinet of Mamuka Bakhtadze.[1]

Davit Sergeenko დავით სერგეენკო
Adviser to the Prime minister of Georgia
Incumbent
Assumed office 8 September 2019
Prime Minister	Giorgi Gakharia
In office 18 June 2019 – 3 September 2019
Prime Minister	Mamuka Bakhtadze
Minister of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees
In office 13 June 2018 – 14 July 2018
President	Giorgi Margvelashvili Salome Zourabichvili
Prime Minister	Mamuka Bakhtadze
Preceded by	Sozar Subari
Succeeded by	Himself (as Minister of Health,Labour,Social Affairs,Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories,Accommodation and Refugees of Georgia)
Minister of Health, Labor, and Social Affairs
In office 25 October 2012 – 18 June 2019
Prime Minister	Bidzina Ivanishvili Irakli Garibashvili Giorgi Kvirikashvili Mamuka Bakhtadze
Preceded by	Zurab Tchiaberashvili
Succeeded by	Eka Tikaradze
Personal details
Born	(1963-09-25) 25 September 1963 Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union (Now Georgia)
Political party	Georgian Dream
Spouse(s)	Leila Migriauli
Children	Two daughters
Alma mater	Tbilisi State Medical Institute Moscow Institute for Continued Medical Education
Military service
Allegiance	Georgia
Branch/service	Medical Service, Georgian Air Force
Years of service	1992–1993

Early life and medical career

Sergeenko was born in Tbilisi, the capital of then-Soviet Georgia in 1963. He graduated from the Tbilisi State Medical Institute as a pediatrician in 1987 and the Moscow Institute for Continued Medical Education as an intensive care specialist in 1991. Returning to Georgia, he practiced neonatology in Sukhumi and Rustavi from 1987 to 1992. He then served in the Georgian Armed Forces as a physician for an air force regiment from 1992 to 1993 and as a chief of medical service at the State Department of Sports from 1995 to 1997. He worked as an ICU physician at the Jo Ann Medical Center in Tbilisi from 1997 to 2006 and a medical services manager at the MediClub-Georgia clinic from 2002 to 2006.[2] In 2006, he became Director General of a medical center in the provincial town of Sachkhere, funded by the billionaire tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili, a Sachkhere native who had amassed his wealth in Russia in the 1990s.[3]

Government career

After Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream coalition won the October 2012 parliamentary election and subsequently formed the new government, Sergeenko was made Minister of Health, Labor, and Social Affairs in the cabinets of Ivanishvili and of his protégé and successor, Irakli Garibashvili.[4]

Sergeenko presided over the establishment of the government-funded Universal Health Care system in February 2013.[5] As the Georgian government's support to post-revolutionary Ukraine amid a brewing confrontation with Russia was reserved, Sergeenko was the only Georgian minister to have visited Kiev in August 2014; he then oversaw Georgia's humanitarian aid, worth of about GEL 1 million (US$570,000), to Ukraine in September 2014.[6][7] Sergeenko was also behind the controversial law adopted in August 2014, tightening the regulation of prescription drugs.[8] He also suggested, in May 2013, that Georgia might consider decriminalization of marijuana as part of the strategy to tackle on illicit drug-trafficking channels.[9]

References

1. "დავით სერგეენკო". MOH (in Georgian). Retrieved 2018-07-19.
2. "Minister of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia: David Sergeenko". Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
3. "Ivanishvili's Incoming Cabinet". Civil Georgia. 16 October 2012. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
4. "New PM Wins Confidence Vote". Civil Georgia. 20 November 2013. Archived from the original on 21 March 2015. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
5. "Irakli Gharibashvili: "Health care has become accessible for everyone."". FactCheck. 3 February 2014. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
6. Jgharkava, Zaza (4 September 2014). "Georgian Government Shows Ukraine Two Faces". Georgia Today (731). Archived from the original on 31 December 2014. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
7. "Georgia Sends Humanitarian Aid to Ukraine". Civil Georgia. 12 September 2014. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
8. "Georgia tightens regulation of prescription drugs". Democracy & Freedom Watch. 14 August 2014. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
9. Rukhadze, Okropir; Synovitz, Ron (20 May 2013). "Georgia Considers Taking Softer Approach To Marijuana". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Retrieved 30 December 2014.