In order to work or continue working in the healthcare sphere, healthcare workers in Armenia undergo certification. This requirement is mandatory from January 1, 2023 and is defined by the law “On Medical Care and Service of the Population”.
At the end of 2023, at the initiative of the government, an amendment was made to the law, and middle and senior medical workers forcibly displaced from Artsakh were given the opportunity to continue their professional activities without a certificate until January 1, 2025, because according to the law of the Republic of Artsakh, having a certificate of continuous professional development was not mandatory to work in medical institutions.
However, the law does not function. Medical institutions of RA require certificates from citizens forcibly displaced from Artsakh who want to be employed. They cannot get a job in the medical institutions of Armenia if they do not have a certificate from the Republic of Armenia.
“I have invitations from medical institutions, I am a highly qualified nurse, but everywhere they want a certificate. The last time they demanded a certificate at the Yeghvard hospital,” says Marine Z.
She has a long professional experience; she has worked in Stepanakert’s infectious diseases hospital since 2008. However, for a long time, she has not been able to get a job because she does not have a certificate.
She applied to the state agency providing the certificates, the National Center for Certification of Professional Activities of the National Institute of Health. Months have passed, but she still hasn’t received the certificate.
“I passed the certification before the New Year, but my scores were low, I have to attend classes a little more. After January, I went, wrote an application, waited, waited, asked questions, they said they stopped the certification, and they will call me. I have been waiting for four months already. About a month ago, I went to that institute again, I said, ‘What’s the problem? Why don’t you organize certification classes? I will have an exam if necessary.’ I was told that there are 400 people in the queue. What should I do, how should I explain to my hungry child that I cannot get a job, feed her, because there is a queue for a certificate? Then why did they hold the first round? Waiting for her turn on the same bench with me is a young girl who has never worked in a hospital, and I, who have 16 years of experience, and we both are on the same level. Is that fair?” says Marine.
She says that they do not teach anything new during the certification courses. “They teach what we went through in the first year of college. There is nothing new in their courses. I, a nurse of many years of experience, listen to what I studied when I was a student.”
Marine is a single mother, lives in Yeghvard, Armenia with her little daughter and elderly mother. She says that the 150,000 drams that the family receives through support programs are used for rent. The family of three lives on 52 thousand drams [about $130] of mother’s pension, half of which goes for utility payments. “We live on 25-30 thousand drams a month. I need work like I need air. I have many offers, but because of that piece of paper, I can’t get a job in my profession and I don’t know who to turn to,” says the young woman.
She went through the certification process in Stepanakert, she has a certificate, but in Armenia that document, which was issued in Artsakh, does not work. “People came from Yerevan, they held courses, the state gave them money for that, we found free time and participated in those classes. And now you need to get a certificate again. It’s absurd, isn’t it, that I can’t find a job now because of a piece of paper?” recalls Marine.
Why is the certification of medical workers being carried out with postponements and delays, as a result of which people who are already in a difficult situation are unable to find jobs for months? We addressed the question to the Ministry of Health. “Those forcibly displaced from Artsakh have the right to be employed without a certificate. In this case, the citizen’s data is needed,” said Lilit Babakhanyan, the information officer. A little later, we learned that Marine Z was called and invited to the certification course.
Syuzan Simonyan