Epress.am News from Armenia
Tavros Voskanyan, currently in Nubarashen penitentiary, wants to be moved to the Hospital for Convicts as he claims he has foreign bodies in his stomach that are causing him sharp pain, and he is unable to eat, has lost weight, and he is unable to properly prepare for his trial. He has asked the Helsinki Association for Human Rights to intervene in his case.
Voskanyan said those foreign bodies have been in his body for a long time, and he had mentioned it back in Nov. 5, 2012, when he was moved from an isolation cell. This was confirmed in a X-ray.
Medical staff at Nubarashen penitentiary treated him to the extent of their abilities, but to no avail, as he requires hospitalization and surgery, which is possible only in the Hospital for Convicts, says Gayane Khachatryan, the lawyer from the Helsinki Association.
Helsinki Association President Mikael Danielyan contacted the Penitentiary Service (also referred to as the Enforcement Service) of the RA Ministry of Justice and requested Voskanyan be transfered to the Hospital for Convicts in order to undergo surgery, and received the following response:
"Taking into consideration the likelihood of foreign bodies leaving the body through natural means, prisoner Tavros Voskanyan has been assigned daily 'dynamic' monitoring. If foreign bodies don't leave naturally or in the case of acute surgical pathology, surgical intervention will be carried out."
"We don't want to address the matter of how the penitentiary will exercise daily monitoring of the foreign bodies leaving Voskanyan's body through natural means," said Khachatryan, "but one thing is clear: instead of treating the prisoner, they are waiting for acute surgical pathology, since, it appears, the doctors' probability theory is not being implemented for more than two years. This is why [people] die in the prison system."