Abuse of Power: Director of Meghri Regional Medical Center Charged

An investigation is underway at the Syunik Regional Investigative Department of the RA Investigative Committee to clarify all the circumstances of the abuses discovered at the Meghri Regional Medical Center LLC. Charges have been brought against the director of the medical facility.

On August 23, 2019, information was received regarding abuses within the Meghri Regional Medical Center LLC. During the preparation of materials, it was found that the director of the Meghri Regional Medical Center LLC, using his official position for self-serving purposes, made significant misappropriations of entrusted property by introducing blatantly false information into official documents and preparing forged documents.

A criminal case was initiated at the Meghri division of the RA police regarding the apparent abuses by the director of the medical facility, under the first part of Article 179 and Article 314 of the RA Criminal Code, which has been forwarded to the Syunik Regional Investigative Department of the RA Investigative Committee for further investigation.

As a result of joint measures taken by employees of the Syunik Regional Investigative Department and the Meghri police, several circumstances have been clarified, and other criminal manifestations have been revealed.

The investigation found that the director of the Meghri Regional Medical Center LLC, as an official and endowed with the powers to carry out organizational and administrative functions, misappropriated significant amounts of entrusted property during the period from January 1, 2017, to December 2019. Specifically, during this period, with the goal of reducing financial expenses of the Meghri Regional Medical Center LLC and ensuring additional financial flows from other sources, the director, driven by personal interests, instructed medical staff to prepare obviously false sick leave documents for certain employees regarding their health conditions without any justification and in the absence of actual sickness or need for treatment.

As a result, based on the forged documents, employees received temporary disability benefits for an extended period, causing significant damage to the state’s legitimate interests. Moreover, in violation of the Minister of Health's orders, patients diagnosed with infectious diseases requiring special conditions of treatment received inpatient care in the somatic department alongside other patients, significantly endangering their lives and health.

The investigation also obtained data indicating that fuel was misappropriated through issuing fake ambulance calls and creating accompanying documents and vehicle route sheets.

It was discovered during the preliminary investigation that, having received a total of 26,000 liters of diesel fuel from three companies, the director accounted for expenses related to only 22,913.5 liters of diesel fuel. The remainder, equivalent to 3,086.5 liters of diesel fuel valued at 1,080,275 AMD, was removed from the company’s property funds using his official position and misappropriated.

Furthermore, to secure additional financial revenues for the Meghri Regional Medical Center LLC, the director validated a medical record containing objectively non-existent data regarding the health of an employee who was treated inpatient in the somatic department without any justification and effectively not receiving round-the-clock care, thereby misrepresenting this information to facilitate the receipt of 107,900 AMD credited to the company’s account for the services rendered.

During the investigation, sufficient evidence has also been obtained indicating that the director instructed the hospital's head nurse to improperly indicate the presence of two doctors at their workplace in the official reports, even though these medical employees were rendering services based on separate civil agreements with another LLC in Kajaran and were not present at their regular duties defined by the employment conditions.

Consequently, based on these false reports, salaries were paid to these doctors from the property fund of Meghri Regional Medical Center LLC, thereby wasting the company’s assets.

Based on sufficient evidence, the director of Meghri Regional Medical Center LLC has been charged under the first part of Article 308, the first part of Article 314, and the second part of Article 179 of the RA Criminal Code. As a precautionary measure, a signature not to leave has been chosen. The preliminary investigation is ongoing. Measures are being taken to ensure a comprehensive, objective, and thorough inquiry, to verify the data obtained regarding other apparent criminal episodes, and to clarify the entire circle of individuals involved in the abuses, individualizing their actions and providing adequate legal assessments.