I’m giving up drinking all together since alcohol is a depressant and so is winter and the news I read and report and I can see that it is starting to effect me.
Here is some depressing news I want to document for the record. It's a story called “IF YOU ARE ILL AND POOR, IT IS BETTER TO DIE RIGHT AWAY”. It’s quite long and talks about the healthcare industry in Armenia and how out of reach it is from many people.
In short it talks about how people are going blind because of their lack of money to get a free medical treatment for cataract, which is brought on from glaucoma, which is believed in some cases to be trigged by social unsettledness of people and lack of confidence in tomorrow. I’m not sure how true the later is, but the fact is that people don’t have money to have the cataract removed before it causes permanent damage, leaving them in the dark.
From the article reads: “As if mocking at the people, recently the Ministry of Health of the RA issued a new decree (25.09.2003) and circulated it among all medical institutions. In short, it says that if a person has an attack of disease on the street and is taken to hospital, doctors do not have a right to provide first aid until the patient pays 10.000 AMD to the institution. In the commentaries to the decree, the Ministry explained it as a measure to introduce realistic prices and thus to ease a burden of the treasury. Even physicians, who have lived on at the expense of patients for a long time, were shocked by this cynical regulation. Nobody is secured from the heart attack or car accident, is anybody? It would be a shame if you die because you don't have 10.000 AMD in your pocket. The question on how pensioners with pensions of 6.000 Drams or teachers with their symbolic salaries can carry 10.000 AMD in their pockets, does not bother public servants.”
I don’t even know how to react to the Minister of Health of the RA’s decree. I can only wish he gets hit by a car and his bribe money and identification is ejected from his pockets so he ends up in the hospital in critical condition and can’t fulfill his own requirements for treatment. That would be justice in my book.
Though I could go on about this for pages, I just want to say one more thing that is relevant to this story.
A couple of years ago, the President of Artsakh, along with the RA Military Prosecutor and the head of the largest government hospital in Armenia started to privatize the government hospital. I heard about it because I know people who work there (doctors and administrators) and could only think that knowing them and their greed, this would really challenge the people needing medical treatment. Earlier this year the privatization of the hospital was stopped, so I’m not sure where it stands but will say that if it is to succeed, we will be facing even worse problems because as we know those people as well as a few others are not thinking of the well being of our people, but of their own “rich” (in a materialistic sense, since they could never be rich in a spiritual way) lifestyle. Very sad and until we can bring these issues under control, a bit depressing.
Here is some depressing news I want to document for the record. It's a story called “IF YOU ARE ILL AND POOR, IT IS BETTER TO DIE RIGHT AWAY”. It’s quite long and talks about the healthcare industry in Armenia and how out of reach it is from many people.
In short it talks about how people are going blind because of their lack of money to get a free medical treatment for cataract, which is brought on from glaucoma, which is believed in some cases to be trigged by social unsettledness of people and lack of confidence in tomorrow. I’m not sure how true the later is, but the fact is that people don’t have money to have the cataract removed before it causes permanent damage, leaving them in the dark.
From the article reads: “As if mocking at the people, recently the Ministry of Health of the RA issued a new decree (25.09.2003) and circulated it among all medical institutions. In short, it says that if a person has an attack of disease on the street and is taken to hospital, doctors do not have a right to provide first aid until the patient pays 10.000 AMD to the institution. In the commentaries to the decree, the Ministry explained it as a measure to introduce realistic prices and thus to ease a burden of the treasury. Even physicians, who have lived on at the expense of patients for a long time, were shocked by this cynical regulation. Nobody is secured from the heart attack or car accident, is anybody? It would be a shame if you die because you don't have 10.000 AMD in your pocket. The question on how pensioners with pensions of 6.000 Drams or teachers with their symbolic salaries can carry 10.000 AMD in their pockets, does not bother public servants.”
I don’t even know how to react to the Minister of Health of the RA’s decree. I can only wish he gets hit by a car and his bribe money and identification is ejected from his pockets so he ends up in the hospital in critical condition and can’t fulfill his own requirements for treatment. That would be justice in my book.
Though I could go on about this for pages, I just want to say one more thing that is relevant to this story.
A couple of years ago, the President of Artsakh, along with the RA Military Prosecutor and the head of the largest government hospital in Armenia started to privatize the government hospital. I heard about it because I know people who work there (doctors and administrators) and could only think that knowing them and their greed, this would really challenge the people needing medical treatment. Earlier this year the privatization of the hospital was stopped, so I’m not sure where it stands but will say that if it is to succeed, we will be facing even worse problems because as we know those people as well as a few others are not thinking of the well being of our people, but of their own “rich” (in a materialistic sense, since they could never be rich in a spiritual way) lifestyle. Very sad and until we can bring these issues under control, a bit depressing.
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