Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visited Gegharkunik Province and attended the opening ceremony of the new building of the Martuni Medical Center.

The Prime Minister congratulated those present on the occasion of the opening of the medical center and noted. "This is a very important day for us, not only because we are opening a newly built and fully equipped medical center in Martuni, but also with this, in fact, we are launching the final stage of the construction of at least 50 medical facilities in Armenia. During this process, a number of medical centers are being built in the regions."

The Head of the Government presented the list of medical centers currently under construction and undergoing major repairs. Thus, the regional hospital of Vayots Dzor, the medical centers of Sisian, Vagharshapat, Tsaghkahovit, Masis, Nairi region, Tashir, and the building of infectious diseases at the Vanadzor medical center are being built. The medical centers of Talin, Ashtarak, Charentsavan, etc. are being reconstructed.

"This program has a clear political and healthcare goal. That goal is to bring medical services as close as possible to the person, to bring them as close as possible to the patient, so that making use of them does not create additional complications. For a very long time, we have also witnessed the over-centralization of medical services, and residents of our regions who needed to receive health services, even on state orders, had to make a lot of additional payments, including for transportation, accommodation, etc. Our policy since 2018 has been to bring services closer to people. It is more effective, it is part of the logic of balanced territorial development and ultimately, accessibility of people to medical services is an important feature of well-being," said Nikol Pashinyan.

In the context of the development of the health sector, the Prime Minister emphasized the need and importance of early diagnosis and prevention of diseases. "Our policy is to prevent disease, to make early diagnosis, and this is the reason why we are creating many new outpatient services parallel to medical centers in Armenia."

The Head of the Government presented the modernization processes of medical centers, including polyclinics, and noted that these projects are already underway. some are in design, some in tender, some in construction stage. In the near future, the medical centers of Artik of Shirak Province, Vardenis of Gegharkunik Province, Vedi of Ararat Province, Jermuk health center of Vayots Dzor will be built.

"Generally, as of now, around 100 million USD are being invested in the healthcare system of the Republic of Armenia in the regions, including the Martuni Medical Center. And this is very important because our approach remains the same, starting from school, we must educate and have a strong community in mind, a strong community in body, a strong community psychologically. And all these three directions are somehow related to healthcare," said Nikol Pashinyan.

The Prime Minister also referred to the mechanism of raising the salaries of the outpatient healthcare staff, due to the implementation of which, in some places, a salary increase of up to 170 percent was recorded. Nikol Pashinyan emphasized that in that case, better quality medical service is also expected.

Summarizing the speech, the Prime Minister thanked all those who contributed to the implementation of the project. "Congratulations to all of us again. I want the health center to have as few patients as possible, but let everyone who enters here discharges fully healed.

Long live the Republic of Armenia."

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The construction works of the new building (about 4720 square meters) of Martuni Medical Center of Gegharkunik Province started in July 2020. In order to complete the modernization works, the center was also equipped with modern medical equipment, furniture and accessories. Within the framework of the program, hemodialysis and blood transfusion services were established in January, 2020. As a result of the implementation of the project, the newly built multi-functional center with a capacity of 79 beds, in accordance with all modern international standards, with wide opportunities to perform diagnostic and therapeutic ambulatory and inpatient services, will serve the population of the region on the spot, close to their places of residence. About 3.3 billion AMD have been invested in the Martuni Medical Center modernization project.