Roland Sahakyan, a soldier who was injured during last year’s April fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh and subsequently acquired a first-degree disability, has not been receiving any support from Armenia’s ministry of defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve been in hospital for 11 months now. Ministry officials have given me many promises, but they have kept none of them. I just want to understand how much longer I am going to be treated this way,\u201d Sahakyan said in an interview with Aravot.am. The soldier added that he needs medical treatment abroad, \u201cbut no one cares about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sahakyan has already undergone 12 surgeries on his spine, and he hopes that a treatment abroad would at least help him to be able to walk again. When asked by Aravot.am’s reporter why he thought he was being neglected by authorities, Sahakyan said; \u201cThey don’t show any interest in me; they have never visited me to see how I am. I’ve been bedridden for 11 months, but the state has been neglecting me; they have shown me no support. When I ended up in hospital after getting injured in April, [former defense minister] Seyran Ohanyan visited me and said that I wouldn’t need anything, that everything would be taken care of. But so far they have done nothing to help.\u201d<\/p>\n
The soldier’s father, Qajik, gets an AMD 90 000 pension from the state; \u201cHow can I provide for a disabled child with that amount of money? We are parents; we’ve been by our son’s side all this time and had no chance to work. I’ve been taking debts to be able to pay for the hospital… I feel humiliated; we’ve been forgotten by everyone. [\u2026] Is that how you treat a soldier? Why don’t you visit him, say, ‘good on you for protecting your country [at the expense of your own health]; we’re proud of you.’\u201d<\/p>\n
The family say they need no official acknowledgement through awards or medals; they just need their son to be able to walk again. \u201cOur son has been in a wheelchair for 11 months; he has even developed pressure ulcers,\u201d the father said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want no medals; let them keep those to themselves. I only have one wish: for them to help me to get on my feet. I’m asking nicely today, but next time I am going to demand,\u201d Roland added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The family say they need no official acknowledgement through awards or medals; they just need their son to be able to walk again. \u201cOur son has been in a wheelchair for 11 months; he has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[65984,66056],"tags":[13901,11083,66403,12998],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278258"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}