According to Khachatur Melikyan, a 54-year-old pediatrician of the Martakert Medical Association, Artaskh, it was very difficult for doctors to adapt after the forced displacement. “There is no need to be afraid of difficulties, but what happened was very harsh for all of us,” says the doctor, who had to save not his family from bombings in Martakert last fall, but the children under his treatment.
According to him, their work became very difficult during the siege of Artsakh. Although there was no critical shortage of medicines, antibiotics, vaccines, antipyretics were in short supply. “We were trying to adjust as much as possible, to manage our work correctly, understand what we could find and what could be substituted.”
According to him, children aged 6-12 months were the most affected by the lack of food, who needed artificial milk formula, but at some point, it became almost impossible to find it.
Recalling the events of September 19, the doctor says that the hospital was equipped with a full hospital shelter and more than a hundred children were immediately transferred there.
“We even had an operating room there, where we performed operations during the previous wars. Even young children from neighboring buildings were brought to us by their mothers… We were busy with them, only for a moment when I realized that I could leave the hospital briefly, I went and brought my children and placed them with us.
The injured and the victims were also brought to the hospital’s shelter. ‘Of course, it was not designed for those scales. I can say that, judging by the injured that were brought to our hospital, there were many victims. There were many in just a few hours… To say too many and too few is wrong, of course: even one victim is a great pain for us. But if we put in numerical terms, there were too many victims for our nation, for our situation.”
“On September 23, those who were here received an order to be prepared, the next day the medical workers and the entire population of the area left the settlement in a column. All night from the 23rd to the 24th, the nurses of the hospital baked bread to distribute during deportation to the needy.”
Now, as a pediatric doctor, Khachatur Melikyan continues his work in Charentsavan. According to him, he and his other colleagues were well received here, but it’s still difficult to recover after what happened. “On the first day, the door was opened with a noise, I thought that they would bring the wounded… we are still there in spirit and mind…”
Ani Gevorgyan