Vazgen Gyozalyan, who was drafted from the Chinchin village of Tavush region on February 1 of this year, did not go to the army. The parents did not take the “paper” from the military commissariat, they just wrote on the back of it: “The conscript needs treatment.”
The conscript’s parents were informed that Vazgen’s papers had already been sent to the investigative bodies by the military commissariat as an evader from conscription. He could now face criminal charges.
Vazgen will turn 20 on March 5. He has already been freed from military service twice due to heart problems, but this time the doctor of the Republican Military Commissariat, cardiologist Harutyun Ghrmajyan, found that he was fit for military service with restrictions.
“The doctor of the Ijevan regional military commissariat has looked at the papers and said that Vazgen was not fit for service, and Gegham Harutyunyan, the head of the Public Council of the Ministry of Defense, was also told that he was unfit to serve. They sent him to the Republican Hospital four times with referrals, there are acts that he is not fit [to serve in the army], but the doctor of the general commission, I did not understand what he wanted to do, he wrote that he was fit to serve with restrictions,” Elmira Alaverdyan, the conscript’s mother, told Forrights.am. “In the commission, they did not appropriately look to his documents and said, ‘Good service to you, with restrictions’!”
The decision of the conscription commission was made on January 18, it was appealed by the parents. The commission examined Vazgen’s case for the second time on January 24. “The same doctor said again, ‘I said he has to serve, and he has to serve.’ I know that my child is sick, has heart stoppages. He gets worse frequently, loses his consciousness,” said the mother, claiming that the medical evidence was in their hands, according to which Vazgen had a serious heart problem.
Vazgen’s father, Ashot Gyozalyan, prefers to have a criminal case against his son and the investigator to examine the boy’s case in connection with the illness, as he is convinced that the boy’s health is incompatible with military service. “My son has a second-degree disability, but he has refused to get it because he is ashamed that people will know and say that he is disabled and is receiving a disability pension,” he said, complaining: “General commission’s doctor wrote that it was temporary. If it is temporary, treat it, then get him to the army. The doctor of the regional military commissariat wrote that my son was not fit to serve according to the government’s 404 decision under Article 26 (c). He has heart rhythm and conductivity disorder, upper ventricular migration, manifested arrhythmia. When walking a bit long, he can grovel from heartbeat, his lips may turn blue, he may even faint and lose consciousness.”
According to Ashot Gyozalyan, the boy, according to doctors, needs to have a device to regulate his heart rate under his skin, but it costs 3.5 million drams [more than $7,000], which he does not have, and the state does not take care of that operation.” They just wrote on the paper that the soldier needs treatment, and that’s it. The disease is congenital. His heart rate drops to 34 beats per minute and then jumps to 170 beats per minute. If I had the money, I would have put it [the device] long ago. If the state treats my son today, I will personally take him to the army tomorrow. Let them treat our child and then take him,” the father stated.
Vazgen Gyozalyan did not even graduate from the high school: the parents withdrew him since the boy’s health was in really bad state.
According to Vazgen’s mother, Harutyun Ghrmajyan, a cardiologist at the Central Medical Commission at the Republican Military Commissariat, received them very rudely. “So rude, so very rude, as if we had entered his house… it was a terrible situation.”
The mother concerned with her son’s destiny, for the fate of her sick son decided to follow the doctor’s advice and protest in front of the government building. “I have decided to gather people, go to the government building and tell the Prime Minister, ‘What are you doing’?”
We will publish the explanation of the Ministry of Defense on the occasion as soon as we receive it.
Marine Kharatyan