In October of last year, Vanadzor resident Vachagan Markosyan, 60, was rushed to Vanadzor's No. 1 Hospital named after Areshyan for an injury to his spinal region and chest, saying that he was injured due to a careless fall in the foyer. 

 

He was taken by ambulance to the hospital on the same day where he died one hour later. Meanwhile, Dr. Vardan Mkhitaryan, examining him at the hospital, had noted that the patient had tuberculosis and one side fracture. The doctor treating him, Georgy Iloyan, assigned him to the hospital for infectious diseases, since he wasn't allowed to keep a patient with tuberculosis in the hospital complex.

 

According to the autopsy in the criminal case launched following the patient's death, the cause of death was traumatic and hemorrhagic shock. Dr. Mkhitaryan's diagnosis was wrong; he hadn't taken note of the blood in the patient's lungs; instead of 4 side fractures, he had noted only one, while Dr. Iloyan had given the wrong treatment. 

 

Charges were laid against the doctors and they were arrested. They were kept for 3 days in detention facilities after which a motion for imprisonment was made. The court sustained the motion, however, applying an alternative punishment — a bail of 500,000 AMD (about $1,227 USD), which the doctors paid the following day and were released.

 

It's important to note that the incident took place in October, material was gathered and prepared since that time, and several times the doctors were called for questioning, but they were arrested 7 months later, with a phone call to come to the police precinct. 

 

After the doctors were arrested, detained and subsequently released on bail, the defense motioned the investigative body to appoint another autopsy. On Sept. 3 of this year, the second autopsy report was produced, which refuted the first one. The new report cites the cause of death as an acute respiratory failure conditioned by the tuberculosis. Accordingly, there was no shortcoming or mistake on the doctors' part that would lead to the patient's death.

 

After receiving this conclusion, the investigative body, in particular, Lori Police Investigator Taron Tadevosyan, however, decided on Sept. 20 to assign a new investigation, explaining that there are two contradictory conclusions in the case, one of which supports the doctors' guilt; the other, their innocence. Meanwhile, as Dr. Vardan Mkhitaryan's attorney Ruben Hakobyan states, the investigator's decision to assign a new autopsy is unlawful. 

 

"The investigator says there are opposing conclusions, let's appoint a third. It turns out, there's one wrong and one right conclusion, a third is assigned to see if the wrong was wrong and the right was right. However, by assigning a second autopsy, they determined that the first [autopsy] was wrong. The grounds for assigning another autopsy are clearly defined by law: a repeat examination is assigned when the conclusion from the initial examination is determined to be wrong. Consequently, when the investigator sustains our motion and appoint another autopsy it means that he recognized the first conclusion, that the doctors are guilty in the patient's death, was wrong, unfounded," explains the attorney, though he's convinced that a third autopsy report will confirm the doctors' innocence. 

 

"If a third autopsy takes place, the criminal proceedings have to be dropped, which already at this stage should've been dropped. When the criminal case proceedings are finally dropped, on the grounds of acquittal, that there was no crime in the doctors' actions, I will take action so that those giving instructions for illegal charges and illegal arrest and those fulfilling such illegal orders are subject to the appropriate responsibility. In any case, they have to draw some conclusions for their wrong decisions," says the attorney, Hakobyan.