Professional information website of Professor H. Bakunts

"A unified approach can help out the nation from this condition"

"ARAVOT" NEWSPAPER, 96/3453/22 May 2009

Assures the second number in the proportional rate of Orinats Erkir Party, MD, Prof. Henry Bakunts

- Your presence in the rate of Orinats Erkir Party is influential, you are a notorious person, nevertheless, the elections of Council of Elders is a political process and you are not politicized and during the meetings with voters you do not speak about politics but about the problems of healthcare, city recovery. If you are elected, will you leave your job and work in Council of Elders?  

- The party will make the decision, but the point of view that doctors should not be involved in politics is right: everyone should do his work. But the times have come when indifference to processes is more condemned than if you don’t do anything. We changed the system in 1991, became an independent country. My colleagues and I have been patiently watching the whole process, did our job, but then we felt that in Armenia we cannot use all the opportunities that modern healthcare gives. It may be the case when we say if you are not interested in politics, then politics will be interested in you. During last 18 years healthcare has changed 8 ministers and I would not say that there are improvements in this sphere. Though the minister was a skilled specialist, a rather good organizer in the field of healthcare, there is no success, because we didn’t find a new model of healthcare. The old is destroyed and we have not yet found the new. The legislative field is practically absent. From 2003-2006, invited by Artur Baghdasaryan, I worked as an adviser of the chairman of NA. We have worked effectively during this time, worked out a number of laws concerning the field of healthcare. The medicine and healthcare laws were drafted in a short period of time. New laws were also being worked on – about tuberculosis, medical insurance. All this was left out from the bill when A.Baghdasaryan had resigned. All members of the coordinating board, notorious people, also resigned. By the way, during drafting of the above mentioned laws I was sent on business to Moscow, where I met Tatyana Yakovlevna, the chairman of healthcare in the Duma. She was very surprised to learn that we privatized institutions of healthcare not having a law about obligatory insurance, she got angry and said: “Armenians are intelligent people, what were you thinking about, it is a suicide- to privatize a system not having a corresponding law”. Yes, sure it is a suicide towards this field. Having an absolute insolvent society- we began the process of privatization. The concept of state order doesn’t work in practice. And the needy groups suffer the most from this. From year to year we have a growth in financing in the field of healthcare, but it’s not noticed as the principles are wrong. We should finance not the hospitals but the patients.

- How will you evaluate the condition of our society, is it healthy?

- We have a significant increase of morbidity, especially from cardiovascular diseases. I have been working in the field of cardiovascular diseases for more than 30 years. Once we had a significant progress, notorious specialists. But now, unfortunately, I must say that our best specialists leave the country as they cannot use their knowledge and experience. I'll name only a number: 9 % of mortality from stroke is registered and by this index we are in the first place worldwide. 

- Do the elections, political showdowns, electoral frauds influence on health of people?

- They certainly do, I positively evaluate active integration of doctors in politics. Doctors should treat the society as the problems we have need an immediate solution. 

- What immediate solutions are we talking about?

- Only a unified approach can bring the nation out of this state, Karen Demirtshyan and Vazgen Sarksyan acted like this in 1998. They formed an alliance of opposition and government to solve these problems together. Today we need to leave away interpolitical showdowns and try to implement the most rational programs.  

- What made you become a member of Orinats Erkir?

- The programs worked out by Orinats Erkir, fidelity to principles that Artur Baghdasaryan has been showing for many years, ensure me that with the help of Orinats Erkir Party we will be able to rise and give a partial solution to questions that bother people. 

- Didn't the rating of Orinats Erkir Party fall?

- No, nothing of the kind, just the opposite, we note an active participation, our meetings take place in crowded halls and squares, people listen to us, about thousand citizens have recently joined the ranks of the party. People should believe that Orinats Erkir Party has a mission- return to people their faith in the government. And the mission of doctors, our colleagues, other representatives of the society should be the same and not the frontal attack.    

- How do you evaluate the political company of « asphaltization»?

- During our meetings people ask us where they were, why are they only now asphaltizating the roads? But they do what they should do. Today Gagik Beglaryan does his responsibility. This is the same if doctors promised to cure their patients only from elections to elections. This is our duty.

Margarita Yesayan