The Ministry of Health of Latvia, together with the Pauls Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital, has launched a new pilot project. Now, tablet antibiotics for the entire course (up to one month) will be provided to patients FREE OF CHARGE right upon discharge from the hospital. The main goal of this initiative is to combat a dangerous trend: the rise of antimicrobial resistance (bacterial resistance to drugs), where familiar medications simply stop working due to incorrect or incomplete use. ## How It Works The scheme is simple: a person is discharged home in stable condition, but they need to "finish" their course of medication. Instead of dragging themselves to the pharmacy and spending their money after an illness, they receive a ready package of medications in the hospital. As noted by the Ministry of Health, people often interrupt treatment due to trivial everyday issues — they lack the strength to walk to the pharmacy or simply do not have enough money for expensive pills. The new project removes these financial and practical barriers, making treatment continuous. The head of the Antimicrobial Resistance Center at the Stradiņš Hospital, Professor Uģis Dumpis, added that the project currently only concerns tablet antibiotics. However, if the experience proves successful, in the future, patients may even receive medications for intravenous injections at home. ## Nuances of "Completing Treatment" Who will receive the medications: stable patients of the Stradiņš Hospital who have been prescribed outpatient treatment at home by doctors. For how long: they will be given exactly as many medications as needed for the course — from one day to a whole month. What to do next: if the course is shorter than a week, after its completion, the patient simply needs to call their family doctor. If the treatment is long-term, an individual monitoring plan will be created for the patient, including tests and specialist examinations. During the project, doctors and officials plan to check how many people actually need such a service, whether the number of readmissions will decrease, and how much better patients will adhere to doctors' instructions. The results should show whether this practice should be expanded to all hospitals in Latvia.
