Health Sector
There are 33 health institutions under the jurisdiction of the Shirak governor’s office, among them five polyclinics, a family medicine center, two maternity hospitals, three medical centers, six village medical ambulatories and six village health centers. Working in the health institutions are 476 doctors and 1,263 nurses. Outpatient visits at the ambulatory polyclinics in the region total 663,823.
In the cities of Shirak there are 12 ophthalmologists, most who provide primary eye care services to the residents. None of medical centers in the Marz have eye care departments that provide secondary or tertiary eye care services. The Shirak region also has a branch of the Howard Karageozyan Foundation, which provides charitable ophthalmological and dental services to children.
Residents of Shirak visit local ophthalmologists for diagnosis, basic treatment and eyeglass prescriptions. For more serious eye disease, complications, surgery and laser procedures most travel to Yerevan.
The leadership of Shirak believes the need for diagnosis and treatment is basically met, however, there is a great need for surgery and care for the more serious eye diseases. For a number of reasons the private centers are not well liked by residents and people prefer to wait for the AECP’s bi-annual visits when they can receive preventive screening, eyeglass prescriptions and detailed diagnosis at no cost. The vulnerable (poverty) population receives high quality surgery and laser treatments at no cost.
During the last mission to Shirak Marz, of the people who were screened by AECP, nearly 2.4 percent were diagnosed with advanced glaucoma, 22.5 percent with cataract, 2.3 percent with corneal disorders and 17.2 percent with fundus disorders. Using this data along with the demographic characteristics of Shirak we estimated the prevalence of eye diseases among the adult population (16 and over) of Shirak below.
According to Shirak authorities, the best location for an eye center would be the medical center of Gyumri in the capital of Gyumri because of its large population and central location in the region. There is a new ophthalmology center in the Gyumri Medical Center, which performs cataract surgeries, however, is poorly equipped. There is also a young practicing surgeon who has the potential to be trained and cover the eye care needs of the population in Gyumri. In addition there is a branch of the Malayan Eye Hospital, a private clinic that has been functioning since 2007. Shirak authorities are certain the area can support two centers given that the demand for eye care in Gyumri — the second biggest city of Armenia — and throughout Shirak is substantial.
