Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan today visited V.A. Fanarjyan National Center of Oncology (NCO) under the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Armenia and attended the event dedicated to the opening of the new Palliative Care Clinic and the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the NCO. Minister of Health Anahit Avanesyan, Deputy Mayors of Yerevan Tigran Avinyan and Gevorg Simonyan, MPs Arsen Torosyan and Narek Zeynalyan, directors of medical centers of Armenia, partners from the Russian Federation, France, Georgia, and other officials participated in the event.

Prime Minister Pashinyan, accompanied by the Minister of Health Anahit Avanesyan and Director of the National Center of Oncology Narek Manukyan, toured the newly opened clinic, familiarized himself with the work done and the created conditions. The relevant officials presented the directions of activities and programs of the clinic to the Head of the Government. It was reported that the Palliative Care Clinic, equipped with modern medical equipment, meets the international standards of hospitals and is ready to provide quality and accessible medical services. It was noted that for modernizing the main building, large-scale construction and technical re-equipment works were carried out, new services will be provided, some of which are exclusive for Armenia. The Palliative Care Clinic will have 26 wards with 30 beds, a separate social-psychological service team that will work not only with the patients, but also with their relatives. The staff includes 45 workers. The total capital investment is AMD 306 million, which was carried out at the expense of NCO's savings.

The Prime Minister also visited the construction site of the new technological building of the NCO, got acquainted with the construction process. Nikol Pashinyan was presented with details about the work done in the radiation oncology department.

In the presence of the Head of the Government, the scientific and educational conference hall named after Professor of the National Center of Oncology Hayrapet Galstyan was also solemnly opened.

PM Pashinyan gave a speech, particularly saying,

“Dear Mrs. Minister,

Dear guests,

Dear attendees,

First of all, I would like to congratulate all of us on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the V.A. Fanarjyan National Center of Oncology and I would like to thank all the people who have dedicated themselves and contributed to the development of the field in Armenia. One of the well-known contributors is present here, and I am glad that on this jubilee occasion we also have such a hall.

To be honest, today's visit is very important for me, because when we have discussions on these issues in the offices, it is very important to come and see what those discussions led to and resulted in. Even for me it was pleasantly unexpected that saying a public health institution we can now understand such an infrastructure and phenomenon, and of course, our understanding is that we should support both the public and private sectors equally, so that to instigate competition in some sense, so that we can ensure development of the sector under the conditions of their correct, honest and fair competition. I am glad that we can see with such examples that this policy can bring results.

I am happy to note that both public and private companies and organizations of the healthcare sector are also on the list of large taxpayers, which is extremely important, because these budget revenues also serve to finance the healthcare sector.

The National Center of Oncology is, of course, one of the most important health institutes of our country, and we live in a time when having a tumor is not a sentence, and especially in this pace of development of modern technologies, cancer has already been ranked among ordinary diseases. I am glad that we are able to move step by step to a situation where this perception will be fully established in the Republic of Armenia.

And, of course, the most important thing for us is to do everything in order not to have to treat diseases, but to be able to create such a policy and environment that, first, diseases are prevented, diagnosed early, and in the case of launching this chain of actions, of course, to make the normal or positive outcome more likely. I want to emphasize with satisfaction that we are now also focused on the policy of disease prevention and early detection. Also, we are on the verge of making very important decisions regarding the accelerator of our Institute of Physics, which will help us to detect tumors early and to be able to solve this problem at a proper level.

Of course, it is natural that such practical topics are touched upon at the jubilee anniversary of such an institution, but returning to the jubilee, I want to once again congratulate and thank you for the work done. I want to thank for what I saw and of course also to express my belief that after completing the interior infrastructure, we will also bring the environment to the same look and level. It is important for changing the perception in general.

Once again, I want to thank, congratulate and express hope that with the development of such institutions we will really have a new level of health care. Although it should be said that so far health care is one of those areas where we have had little or nothing to be ashamed of. Even if there were some problems, building infrastructure, etc., they have been solved over time. But in the field of scientific expertise, in the field of healthcare organization, we have really achieved very serious success, and perhaps now is the time for this success to bring in line with international trends and processes as much as possible.

It is time for us to have a new level of access to health care covering the entire country, and as we consider access to education an important political issue today, access to health care in all regions and villages is an equally important political issue. But, of course, this does not mean that there should be accelerators in all places, there should be state-of-the-art equipment in all places. There should be the right infrastructure so that the patient is served correctly in the correct chain-link, so that it is possible to really free some chain-links from overload, and fill the gaps in other healthcare sectors, regions, communities, settlements, villages. In this case, we will really be able to achieve complete harmony.''

On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the National Center of Oncology, a group of distinguished doctors of the Center were awarded with state awards by the Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Pashinyan personally handed over the state awards and once again congratulated and wished productive work.

Within the framework of the event, the Head of the Government watched the documentary film dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the National Center of Oncology.