On January 1, 2011, three and a half year-old Artashes Setrakyan was rushed to the Armavir Medical Center.

The young boy was diagnosed with acute laryngotracheitis* and was transferred to the Surb Astvatzamayr in Yerevan the next day. After 4 days in a coma, Artashes died in hospital.

Sayad Setrakyan, the child’s father, immediately went to the Shengavit Police Station in Yerevan and filed a complaint. The investigative unit conducted a forensic exam which was followed by an examination conducted by medical experts from the RA Ministry of Health in April.

The committee found that a number of medical procedural mistakes had been made that lead to the young boy’s death. Those staffers named responsible were Armavir Medical Center physicians Armenouhie Haroutyunyan and Anna Aroushanyan; Unit Chief Garnik Davtyan; Resuscitation Specialist Karen Antonyan.

For instance, the committee concluded that Armenouhie Haroutyunyan failed to give the boy oxygen and underestimated the seriousness of his ailment. The fact that the Armavir hospital transferred Artashes to Yerevan in his grave condition was also noted as a serious medical breach.

Based on these findings, the Armavir Regional Prosecutor launched a criminal case

The physicians in question never admitted that they had done anything wrong. Further forensic tests were ordered and the National Examinations Bureau attached to the RA Academy of Sciences was given the task.

In his testimony, Sayad Setrakyan stated that when he arrived at the Armavir Hospital from work, Dr. Haroutyunyan told him not to worry and that his boy was improving. She even promised that he would be discharged the next day.

When Sayad returned to the hospital the next day, his wife told him that no doctor looked in on the boy during the entire night. The boy’s condition had not improved.

The father stormed out of the patient room to look for another doctor. He met Dr. Anna Aroushanyan and told her about his son’s condition.

Sayad testified to the Bureau that Dr. Aroushanyan, seeing the condition his son was in, immediately rushed Artashes into the resuscitation ward and called in other doctors to assist.

The father demanded that he be allowed to drive Artashes to Yerevan. Dr. Aroushanyan refused, telling Sayad that the hospital had requested a medical unit from Yerevan. When the team never showed, the hospital decided to take Artashes to Yerevan in one of its ambulances.

Dr. Aroushanyan accompanied the boy in the ambulance to Yerevan. She testified that during the journey, the boy’s condition worsened and that his heart stopped beating when they entered the city. They started to give little Artashes CPR.

“When we reached the Surb Astvatzamayr Hospital, the boy was rushed to intensive care and the staff took over. We waited outside. When we were informed that the boy had been resuscitated, we left,” Dr. Aroushanyan testified.

To make a long story short, what it comes down to is that Artashes’ mother, Marineh Davtyan claims that no doctor came to check on her son during the entire night at the Armavir Medical Center.

Meanwhile, Dr Armenouhie Haroutyunyan, the physician on call, says she personally checked in on Artashes several times and that she made a note in the boys’ medical history.

Sayad, the dead boy’s father, told Hetq that some of the committee experts noted that a different color ink had been used, leading to suspicions that the physician filled in the blanks afterwards. The father added that this point was amazingly left out of the official concluding report.

To add insult to injury, Dr. Haroutyunyan even found fault with the boy’s mother and grandmother who had spent that first night with Artashes in hospital.

The doctor claims that while she stressed to them the need to stay awake and monitor the boy’s condition, they fell asleep and didn’t notify hospital staff in time when Artashes’ condition worsened during the night.

In the end, the criminal case against the physicians was dropped by the Armavir Regional Prosecutor’s Office.

Deputy Prosecutor A. Gabrielyan argued that the physicians had made the fatal mistake of not requesting a resuscitation unit from the Arabkir Medical Unit under duress and that no crime had been committed. Gabrielyan even went out of his way to extol the virtues of Dr. Armenouhie Haroutyunyan, saying she had graduated from the Yerevan Medical Institute with honors.

The only one still facing criminal charges was Nshan Gevorgyan, the former director of the medical center. He was charged with not outfitting the hospital with the necessary child resuscitation equipment.

Even though Deputy Prosecutor concluded that “Dr. Armenouhie Haroutyunyan had provided less than satisfactory care to Artashes and underestimated the seriousness of the boy’s condition, and that the organizational shortcomings of Nshan Gevorgyan lead to the death of the patient”, he absolved the doctor of any guilt and placed the burden on the director.

Sayad Setrakyan appealed the decision of the deputy prosecutor. On January 16, the Armavir Prosecutor general’s Office upheld the decision.

He has since written letters to Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Armenia’s Prosecutor General Aghvan Hovsepyan.

*(A disease of the respiratory tract than that is characterized by inflammation of the vocal cords. It is a condition more common in children under 6 years of age.)