Audit Chamber of Armenia revealed 5 major inconsistencies with  provisions of licenses issued to medical institutions of the republic

ArmInfo. The Audit Chamber (AC)  of Armenia revealed 5 major inconsistencies with the provisions of  licenses issued to medical institutions of the republic. This was  announced on May 22 at a joint meeting of the standing parliamentary  commissions on financial-credit and budgetary issues and on health  and social issues, said AP member David Chibukhchyan.

He reminded that the licenses are issued by the Agency under the  licenses of the Ministry of Healthcare of the Republic of Armenia on  a perpetual basis with the payment of the appropriate size of the  state duty.  However, studies conducted by the Chamber of Auditors  for the period from January 1, 2017 to September 30, 2018, revealed  some inconsistencies. In particular, one of the problems concerns the  service life of medical equipment, which must meet modern  requirements in order to eliminate its moral and physical  deterioration. The licensing authority, continued David Chibukhchyan,  should assess the applicant's availability of equipment, in  accordance with the decision

Government of 2002, which has a list of equipment required for each  area. The Chamber of Auditors, however, noted that the service life  of the equipment has not been established, therefore there is a risk  that applicants may provide outdated equipment. Therefore, the  Chamber proposes to develop and implement legal mechanisms with an  indication of the timing of the use of medical equipment.  

The second problem, discovered during the inspections, concerned the  issue of the provision of documents testifying to the qualifications  of specialists who will work in the organization that received the  license.  According to the current order, an organization only after  receiving a license, 5 days before the start of operations, must  submit the relevant documents on the qualifications of its employees.  The Chamber considered this approach ineffective.

Moreover, having examined 400 licenses issued during the reporting  period, the Chamber found 267 cases in which the above-mentioned  documents were completely absent. This means that either the licensed  organization did not start working, or that it began working, but did  not provide documents on the qualifications of its employees. In the  latter case, the license must be suspended. AC researchers found out  that some organizations in Armenia started their activities without  providing the above-mentioned documents, moreover, some of them even  received funds within the framework of the state order.

The third problem discovered during the audit concerned the issue of  qualification of specialists. According to the accepted procedure, in  medical institutions that have licenses, commissions should be formed  to deal with this issue, but this is not done, and the process of  checking organizations before granting a license involves only  checking documents, not the specialists themselves.

The fourth problem concerns the activity of licensing commissions. In  the course of examining applications for licenses, it often turns out  that the applicant organization does not have important equipment for  carrying out its activities, for example, the sterilization room does  not have the sterilization apparatus itself, or there is no  protective equipment for the employees in the X-ray room. According  to the rules, such organizations should not receive a license. But in  fact, some of them get a license. The Chamber identified 67 cases in  which the Licensing Agency decided that the claimant's conditions did  not meet the requirements, but the commission issued a license in the  course of a secret ballot.

The fifth issue concerns random inspections of applicant  organizations. As David Chibukhchyan noted, 80% of the applicants,  according to the procedure, are checked, and 20% are not. At the same  time, it is unclear what principle is chosen, who will be checked,  and who will not. One way or another, the Chamber considered this  approach to be fundamentally wrong, since we are talking about  people's health, all organizations that are going to work in the  health sector should be checked without fail.