Armenia PM, healthcare minister clarify issues related to state-funded treatment

Hospital treatment used to be free-of-charge for children under 7 prior to July of this year, but now state-funded medical treatment is also available for children and teens under 18. However, this only concerns hospital treatment. This is what Minister of Healthcare Arsen Torosyan informed during a meeting with Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan.

If a child has a scratch that doesn’t pose a risk to his or her life, the child should be taken to a district polyclinic. If a child’s body temperature rises on a working day, the child should be taken to a polyclinic where doctors will prescribe treatment or, if necessary, send the child to a hospital.

 If a child has a fracture, inflammation of the appendix or is in any other condition that requires hospital treatment, the child will receive treatment through state-funded treatment. However, if the child’s parents have taken him or her to a hospital, claiming that the child needs emergency help, but an examination shows that the child is healthy, the parents have to pay for the examination, if the child is between 7 and 18 years old, while studies for children under 7 will be free-of-charge.

As the minister mentioned, the government pays a high price to hospitals for service through state-funded treatment so that the hospital doesn’t require additional money from patients.

According to Torosyan, it is very important to distinguish ambulatory services from hospital services the right way.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan agreed that if people go to a hospital with meaningless problems, this will create an additional burden for the medical personnel which, in its turn, will decrease the quality of services provided to patients in need of emergency assistance.