Gagik Khachatryan’s legal team urges an immediate surgery for Gagik Khachatryan
Gagik Khachatryan’s legal team issued a statement today urging the authorities to provide an immediate opportunity for him to receive the necessary and urgent medical assistance, as required by law. Gagik Khachatryan’s legal team has repeatedly reported that he needs surgical intervention, the opportunity for which has not been provided by the RA law enforcement agencies, which impacts Gagik Khachatryan’s health negatively day by day.
“On July 4 and August 5, 2019, at the request of the body conducting the criminal proceedings, two leading medical consulates were invited by the RA Minister of Health with the involvement of Armenia’s leading specialists, concluding that Gagik Khachatryan needed surgery, which cannot be performed in the Republic of Armenia since the initial surgery was performed in 2018 in the German Federation and implants were inserted. The need for double surgery was also confirmed by the medical consultations conducted by the orthocentric medical center of the Hamburg city of Germany and the leading doctors of the American hospital in Paris,” said Yerem Sargsyan, Khachatryan’s attorney stated. He also added that all doctors unanimously agreed that surgery should be done as quickly as possible, as delaying it could cause sudden and irreversible damage to Gagik Khachatryan’s health.
The legal team warns that despite these warnings, Gagik Khachatryan has not been given the opportunity to have surgery so far. Instead, he has been staying in the penitentiary for about six months, having only received painkillers. Due to all this, Gagik Khachatryan’s health has deteriorated, which is why he is currently at Astghik Medical Center, where he is receiving conservative and restorative treatment, which doctors say is not the main treatment.
“On 22.01.2020 and 28.02.2020, as a result of medical consultations, it was noted that Gagik Khachatryan needed double surgery, that is he had to undergo surgical decompression of the neck area of the spinal cord through double surgery. In a situation like this, the State is simply obliged to care for the health of its citizen by ensuring, in all possible ways, his right to receive medical care,” the lawyer said.
It should be noted that failure to provide emergency medical care to Gagik Khachatryan, a former chairman of Armenia’s State Revenue Committee and ex-finance minister at the very least results in “ill-treatment” by the State, which is unacceptable and is explicitly prohibited by both the RA Constitution and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
