Under the procedural supervision of the Prosecutor of the Prosecutor's Office of Shirak Region and according to the criminal case under the features of Article 214, Part 1, Article 325, Parts 1 and 2, Article 178, Part 2, Points 1 and 2 of the RA Criminal Code information was obtained that a group of surgeons from Gyumri Medical Center CJSC had performed different types of operations at different times, but made obviously false records about the type and cost of the performed operation. In the result, less money was entered in the funds of the company, significantly different from the cost of the actual operation.
Surgeons, aimed at embezzlement of money from state budget demanded money from the state budget for the payment of medical services, without the knowledge of the patients, received the full amount of the paid services in cash, making falsifications in their medical histories and other documents. In particular, the operations were established as urgent services provided under the co-payment, and false contracts were concluded. In the result, only the defined amount of the co-payment - 50,000-65,000 AMD - was entered to the funds of the medical center from the sums collected from the patients, and the remaining sums regarding the patients' treatment were transferred to the account of the medical center from the state budget. In such means, 1.8 million AMD was fraudulently embezzled from the state and patients.
Based on sufficient evidence obtained during the investigation of a group of doctors from the above-mentioned medical institution has been charged under different points of Article 178, Part 2, in some cases also under Article 325, Part 1 of the RA Criminal Code. The criminal prosecution was terminated taking into account of the grounds of non-acquittal accusation, as well as on the grounds of application of the act of amnesty, expiration of the statute of limitations, lack of corpus delicti.
Anyway, the investigation, in fact, confirmed that the staff of the medical center, the doctors, taking advantage of the lack of supervision in that sphere, had the opportunity to commit the above-mentioned criminal acts. The fact that the citizens receiving medical care were not aware of their rights and had not enough information about the procedure for receiving treatment both free of charge and on preferential terms as defined by the Government of the Republic of Armenia.
In other words, the registration of patients, the documentation related to the treatment, the patients not being informed about their rights, responsibilities, treatment conditions, signing the contract, no supervision of registration establish favorable conditions to mislead people and breach their trust.
To this end, a petition was sent from the Department of Corruption Crimes of the RA General Prosecutor's Office to T. Petrosyan, Shirak Marzpet, raising the mentioned issues and discussing these issues with the heads of the medical institutions subordinated to the Marzpetaran, in order to exclude the mentioned circumstances of registration of patients, supervision of the documentation related to the treatment, concluding contracts, awareness of receiving proper state free and preferential medical care.
According to the letter received from the Marzpet of Shirak, the petition was discussed at Marzpetaran. The directors of the institutions providing hospital care and services were instructed to make the cashier’s service of those institutions full day providing free medical care by the state and providing awareness leaflets to patients in need. It was instructed to define a procedure providing the patients, their relatives with information about their rights, responsibilities and treatment conditions, as well as the availability of the forms of the contracts.
