One of the patients receiving inpatient treatment at the Nubarashen Mental Health Center was abused by the nurse, kicking and hitting different parts of his body. Lawyer Armine Davtyan alerted the Journalists for Human Rights NGO about the incident.
“The nurse, with violence and brutally, beat my client,” the lawyer told Forrights.am.
She does not disclose the client’s personal information. She says that it is the client’s decision. She mentions only that the man has been receiving treatment at the Nubarashen Mental Health Center for a lengthy period of time.
According to the lawyer, the person who brutally beat her client is 48-year-old Gor Antonyan, a nurse of the 5th ward of Nubarashen psychiatric hospital. He is a former police officer who left the system.
“Not only my cliend told me about the beating, but also other people present at the scene at that moment. My confidant has had a strained relationship with nurse Gor for years; during each of Gor’s on-duty days, my confidant, according to him, had to lock himself in the ward, not go out, and, if he did go out, only in case of extreme necessity, in order to avoid conflict. The entire medical staff was aware of it. Before that, there was verbal violence from nurse Gor, but this is the first time when he used physical violence,” lawyer Davtyan presents the situation.
How happened the incident of violence?
The incident of violence against a psychiatric hospital patient took place on November 10. Davtyan was informed about it by her confidant himself. During the investigative actions following the report about the crime, it was found out how the incident happened.
Davtyan says that one of the patients receiving treatment at the mental health center often went out of the room, and other patients, due to his constant movement, have tried to take him out of the room but the same patient tried to enter the room again. As a result, there was a conflict, which Gor Antonyan, who was far from the area, did not give any importance to and did not intervene in time.
“My client was sleeping in the same hospital ward and, when one of the participants fell on his bed during the fight and woke him up, he tried to separate the participants of the fight. At that time, nurse Gor entered the ward and addressed my client and said, ‘Why are you dragging the patient?’ He said: I’m not dragging him; I was asleep’. And Gor started beating him. He says ‘he hit my head on the bars of the iron bed with such force that sparks flew out of my eyes.’ In addition, he put his foot on my client’s stomach, pressed him and hit other parts of his body with his other foot and hands from different sides: kidneys, legs, abdomen. The other nurse, seeing that the situation became really bad, came and pulled my client, and at that very last moment, Gor Antonyan tried to hit again, but his arm touched the iron bar of the bed and broke. Now he says that the fracture was inflicted on him by my client.
But a question puzzles me: how could a weak, semi-asleep person under the influence of drugs hit the ex-policeman so hard that he breaks his arm?” says Armine Davtyan, the representative of the beaten patient.
According to her, the nurse of the mental health center has matured his hatred towards his client to such an extent that what happened was an occasion for him to show aggression towards the patient.
The lawyer says that she has recorded many violations in the psychiatric hospital, which she will be consistent in order to eliminate.
They tried to inform the Ministry of Health about the incident of violence against the patient, but there was no proper response to the calls to the hotline. “The Ministry of Health showed absolute inaction,” the lawyer claims.
The Office of the Human Rights Defender was also informed about the incident. From here, Forrights.am was told that there was no need for a visit. “The employees tried to solve the issue through a phone call and there was no need for a visit,” said HRD spokesperson Amalya Margaryan in response to our inquiry, adding that they are in daily contact with the patient.
Investigative actions with gross violations
As a result of severe violence, according to Armine Davtyan, her client was injured in the head, as well as in different parts of the body. The health center did not even provide emergency care and the patient requested that the lawyer call emergency services. The incident of violence was immediately reported to the police.
“It was with great difficulty that I was able to find out who is the investigator conducting the investigation. I asked him what was the reason that it was the third day of the incident and no action has been taken. He said that they were busy and there were no working days. But I demanded that on Monday, November 14, they perform investigative actions and provide my client with a forensic doctor’s referral,” the lawyer tells.
The interrogation at the Nubarashen Mental Health Center was carried out 4 days after the incident, on November 14, and, according to Davtyan, with many violations. First, investigator Edik Gabrielyan conducted the interrogation in the presence of many medical workers, and the principle of pre-investigative confidentiality was not observed. “I demanded that the interrogation be conducted in secret, otherwise I will submit an appeal to the superior of the investigator, after which the investigator asked the doctors to leave the room,” the lawyer notes. She also claims that the interrogation was flawed.
Investigator Edik Gabrielyan told Forrights.am that criminal proceedings have been initiated under Article 195 of the RA Criminal Code, “Physical application”. Gabrielyan gave a brief response to the question of whether there were any violations during the investigation: “The investigation is proceeding within the framework of the law.”
Hasmik Hambardzumyan