A chaos or intentional distortion? Following Arsen Torosyan’s and Gevorg Tamamyan’s statements

Gevorg Tamamyan, former Adviser to Health Minister Arsen Torosyan, told reporters on September 3 that in 2019 the amount allocated to the MIBS Medical Center run by Minister Torosyan’s wife has doubled.

“What criteria did you use when distributing the allocations for state-funded services at the beginning of the year? How did the allocations for state-funded services to the center run by your spouse double, when they only provide MRT (Magnetic Resonance Tomography) and CT (Computed Tomography) examinations? If it is so good, let’s multiply it by ten, let all the people go there … Why did you increase (by 1 billion) the allocation to the private center, making it about 2.7 billion, while the overall allocation for oncology in Armenia does not even reach 1 billion?” (5:03-5:45)

Responding to the questions raised by Gevorg Tamamyan on Facebook, Health Minister Arsen Torosyan noted: “My wife does not own any institution. She is just director of the medical institution. I have addressed this issue many times. And the nonsense about this consists in that they are not even familiar with simple numbers. I don’t know where they got that figure of AMD 2.5-2.7 billion from.”

The Fact Investigation Platform decided to reveal how much money was allocated from the state budget to MIBS Medical Center, which is headed by Arsen Torosyan’s wife, Vardanush Tevanyan, and what additional $ 1 billion extra allocation Gevorg Tamamyan was talking about.

Speaking to Fip.am, Gevorg Tamamyan clarified that his words have caused misunderstanding. By saying “private center”, he did not mean MIBS Medical Center (as reported by media) but another private medical center. And the aforementioned additional AMD 1 billion was allocated to that other center.

“The 2.7 billion AMD referred to another center, and the two times increase in allocation for free of charge services referred to the minister’s wife’s center” Tamamyan said.

Amounts allocated to MIBS

Thus, the official website of the Ministry of Health provides information on the state funds allocated to organizations for 2018 and 2019. According to that information, about AMD 22.7 million was allocated to MIBS LLC in 2018, while in 2019 that amount was doubled, making it AMD 57 million.

About the allocation of AMD 1 billion

As mentioned above, Gevorg Tamamyan told FIP.am that his words were misunderstood and that an additional AMD 1 billion in state money was allocated to another private medical center. After examining the state budget allocations, it became clear that the state budget allocations for Astghik Medical Center owned by Natalie Pharm LLC increased by AMD 1.16 billion in 2019. In 2018, 1.6 billion AMD was allocated to the medical center, and in 2019 it is planned to allocate 2.6 billion AMD.

Thus, Gevorg Tamamyan’s statement that the state funding for MIBS Medical Center has doubled in 2019 is true. As for the additional state budget allocation of AMD 1 billion, it was not allocated to MIBS, as was reported in the media, but to Astghik Medical Center.