Epress.am News from Armenia
Trial in the case into the death of conscript Norayr Sahakyan who died 45 hours after being drafted into military service on December 21, 2012 continues as the defendants, medical doctors accused of negligence, motion for a forensic re-examination.
Gegham Hakobyan, Khojalu hospital doctor Arkadi Chakhoyan’s attorney, told Epress.am on Tuesday that conscript Sahakyan had an allergic reaction to a vaccination, and the deterioration of his condition led to the death. The military doctors, as stated by Hakobyan, were not at fault for the incident. The lawyer added that a re-examination was needed as a pulmonologist, a cardiologist, a hematologist and other narrow specialists did not participate in the previous two.
Norayr Sahakyan's father, Nver Sahakyan, had earlier told Epress.am that his son’s temperature went up after an injection at the central assembly point. Still, the administrators at the assembly point sent Sahakyan to Nagorno-Karabakh. Sahakyan said his son’s fever worsened on the way and he asked subaltern officer Varuzhan Manasyan who was responsible for Sahakyan's transfer to NKR to take him to a hospital. However, the officer said he had no such authority and sent the boy to a hospital in Khojalu where he subsequently died.
The attorney does not find it a coincidence that immediately after the conscript’s death the Armenian Ministry of Defense changed the procedure of vaccinating the recruits.
“Previously, recruits were vaccinated on conscription day; however, after this incident [the Ministry] decided to perform the vaccinations one month prior to the recruitment so that the recruits remained under the watch of civilian clinics and hospitals where they could receive care in case of complications or allergies,” Hakobyan said. Norayr Sahakyan, the attorney added, should have remained under the supervision of the physician who had performed the vaccination and not be sent to Khojalu where he arrived ‘in grave condition.’
Based on the findings of previous forensic medical examinations, Sahakyan's death was caused by negligent medical treatment. Legal expert Gagik Harutyunyan said during an earlier court hearing that the M.D. at the assembly point had to refer Norayr Sahakyan for an X-ray examination after the young man showed signs of an allergic reaction to the vaccine.
“Do not think that allergies happen only in the form of some skin rash; they have an impact on tissues throughout the body. The boy's temperature reached 39.6 degrees. Environment enabling a rapid development of pneumonia was created. I am 100% sure that if they had listened to his lungs, they would have heard rattling,” the expert had said.