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Cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has brought investments to Kapan Medical Center, helping improve the quality of medical services.
Kapan Medical Center Director Arsen Babayan spoke about the impact of the cooperation during a media briefing for journalists visiting Syunik Province accompanied by the ICRC.
“In particular, new equipment has been provided to the emergency medical service, and in 2023 the dressing room was renovated so that our medical center would be as prepared as possible to provide better and more targeted medical care to patients in emergency situations. Various training sessions have also been conducted at the initiative of the ICRC so that medical staff can master the details of emergency medical care and provide higher-quality medical assistance,” Babayan said.
He added that in recent years, the ICRC has installed solar panels on the medical center’s premises, which has significantly eased the medical facility’s energy costs, while in 2023 the operating room was completely renovated, which will allow surgical interventions to be carried out more safely in emergency situations.
“Our medical center is a multidisciplinary hospital and has a wide range of services. We provide primary medical care and have surgical, therapeutic and intensive care departments. There is a need to refer people to Yerevan only when the condition of patients is extremely severe,” the hospital chief said.
According to him, cardiovascular and oncological diseases are prevalent in the Kapan community. In this respect, Kapan has no particular features that distinguish it from all other settlements, which is also evidenced by international statistics.
“We are trying to improve our services in all areas. The medical center employs a highly qualified traumatologist who is also an orthopedic specialist by profession and performs both hip and knee joint replacements. We have also increased the volume of surgical interventions. We already perform laparoscopic procedures, and in cases involving the gastrointestinal tract, we carry out extensive surgeries, which were inaccessible to patients some time ago. We have neurosurgical services.
The medical center previously did not have mammography equipment, but now we have acquired a state-of-the-art mammography machine, which will allow us to implement screening programs, detect cancer at an early stage and begin treatment at an earlier stage,” the director of Kapan Medical Center said.
According to Babayan, there has also been an increase in the number of people seeking medical care, although Kapan Medical Center has not yet experienced a very heavy workload. There are no long waiting times or large queues.
“At present, we have a shortage of personnel in some services — an intensive care specialist, neurologist and rheumatologist — so we are trying to attract specialists. The Ministry of Health is helping us through its targeted residency program, and it also provides additional funds to doctors dispatched to the regions so that they can address their accommodation-related issues on site,” he said, adding that the Zangezur Copper Molybdenum Combine is also helping them find new specialists and acquire new equipment.
The journalists also familiarized themselves with the work of the morgue. Kapan-Meghri inter-district forensic medical expert Ishkhan Simonyan, who handles the autopsies, noted that they have cooperated extensively with the ICRC since 2020 and received a 48-place refrigerated unit, and are therefore ready to work under any conditions. The morgue was also provided with a generator, which will ensure the uninterrupted operation of the refrigerated unit.
“We were provided with new autopsy tables, bags and instruments. There have been quite a few improvements. We are waiting for the building conditions to also be improved. We were informed that a project for the construction of a new morgue will be presented soon. The Kapan morgue serves the cities of Kapan and Kajaran and the adjacent communities. A morgue meeting international standards has been built in Agarak. We hope that the new facility to be built in Kapan will also be like that. We pay attention to every detail. Under the current sanitary and hygienic conditions, the spread of infections and diseases is completely ruled out. Medical waste generated from the materials used is destroyed by incineration,” Simonyan said.
He said there have been cases when the morgue has also served foreign nationals. In such cases, embassies provide the personal data of the deceased, and alongside the autopsy of their bodies, a forensic medical examination is conducted, the results of which are presented to the relatives of the deceased.