Inspired by teachers working in remote villages, a group of people concerned with healthcare issues started research and negotiations that have took two years to complete, and finally their efforts have led to establishment of Health for Armenia Foundation.

“We want to create a movement in healthcare. Doctors and nurses will move to the neediest places in Armenia for two years and become an important part of local communities, seeing first-hand the difficulties of life there and bringing solutions for the communities’ problems,” said co-founder, member of the Board of Trustees of the new foundation Larisa Hovannisian.

Larisa Hovannisian

Photo: Mediamax

Health for Armenia is built based on the model and experience of Teach For Armenia. The new foundation will sign up family doctors and nurses and assign them to the villages in need of healthcare workers. As of May 1, there were 24 family practitioner vacancies in medical institutions in the marzes.

It is an official number. According to co-founder of Health for Armenia Mkrtich Kirakosyan, field studies revealed a worrying picture: people in remote areas don’t see their family doctors for years, and retired doctors have to keep working because there is no replacement for them, although their health does not allow traveling between villages anymore.

It is different in the capital. According to the 2017 statistics, the ratio of doctors per capita is 30.02 per 10,000 people in Yerevan as opposed to the 14.6 in the marzes.

“We don’t take upon ourselves the state’s job of filling the vacancies. Our objective is to create a new generation of doctors, whose leaders will transform the landscape of healthcare,” said Mkrtich Kirakosyan.

Mkrtich Kirakosyan

Photo: Mediamax

Certified family doctors and nurses are eligible for Health for Armenia, which does not have age limitations. Health for Armenia fellows will work in marzes for two years, in teams serving several communities at the same time.

“Each doctor will serve 2,000 people, according to the established standard. Armenian villages are usually small, so one doctor will serve 3 to 4 villages. We’ll have one family doctor and four nurses per team. Male nurses can apply too. The doctor will stay in one village and the nurses will be his right hand in other villages assigned to their team. They need to have a wide range of skills,” said family doctor, co-founder of Health for Armenia Gayane Voskanyan.

Gayane Voskanyan

Photo: Mediamax

The fellows, accepted over several stages of selection, will take a five-week intensive retraining course. Their leadership and professional development program will continue during the two years of work in the marzes. 

The fellows will be mentored by doctors from Armenia and the Diaspora, and the Health for Armenia’s family doctors will mentor the nurses.

“If I were a medical university graduate in Armenia, I would have joined the program right away, because no one gives you an opportunity in Yerevan without work experience. When you’re young, you have a few years for figuring yourself out and the “privilege” of learning medicine intuitively, so to say.

The most important thing is that there is an opportunity to develop your leadership qualities, which anyone needs to be successful, let alone people in Armenia, where leadership skills are not taught at school and university. I would consider this the best investment in my career,” said Larisa Hovannisian.

First, Health for Armenia will conduct a test program in Lori marz: 4 family doctors and 16 nurses will start working there in December 2020. Apart from salaries covered by state, they will receive financial assistance from the foundation.

Photo: Mediamax

“The preference will be given to nurses from rural communities. We will select people who comply with the requirements of the program in terms of knowledge and the system of values, share our ideas. They will make the team of our doctors and get retrained. It is important to advance the professional and leadership qualities of the nurses. If the given village doesn’t have a nurse, we will assign nurses from Health for Armenia,” said the co-founders.

The foundation receives professional assistance from Armenian Association for Health Education and Development (ArAHED). Member of the association, pediatric surgeon, UCLA Professor Shant Shekherdimian believes Armenia is past the times when Armenia was of getting medical equipment by helicopters. Now it is time to help Armenia’s healthcare sector to develop steadily and independently, he said.

Shant Shekherdimian

Photo: Mediamax

“This is not a charitable project, but an effort aimed at improving the sector. It will solve fundamental issues. The real healthcare problem in Armenia is the lack of not hospitals, but quality, funding, education and competent distribution of human resources. We don’t dream of opening oncology centers in marzes, but one percent of the sum required for that can save as many or even more lives and positively impact the standard of life,” said Shekherdimian, who is also a member of the Health for Armenia Board of Trustees.

Health for Armenia signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Health of Armenia in November of 2018. Head of Department of Human Resources Management of the Health Ministry Kristina Gyurjyan has stated that although Armenia’s medical universities graduate many students, only a few of them want to work in marzes.

The ministry is trying to solve the problem with short-term business trips and targeted clinical studies, allocating 50 vacancies for that. The state covers the applicant’s tuition fees and chooses their specialty based on the demand. Upon completing the courses, the doctor is obliged to work for 5 years in the place of ministry’s assignment.

Kristina Gyurjyan believes that just one agency is not enough to solve the issue, but Health for Armenia can help with family doctors.

Kristina Gyurjyan

Photo: Mediamax

“The foundation wants to find out the real demand for family practitioners. I think the program will be of substantial help for us in this regard, because we receive official numbers that differ a lot from the actual reality. It is particularly important that the foundation will give preference to young specialists. The institution of family doctors works well in the marzes, but the doctors themselves are elderly, so we need a change of generation,” said Kristina Gyurjyan.

Health for Armenia fellows will also implement healthcare programs in the communities. “If fellows from Teach For Armenia and Health for Armenia happen to work in the same community, the impact will increase,” said the co-founders.

Lusine Gharibyan 

Photos by Emin Aristakesyan