Armenian doctor who worked in Syria and Sudan tells about her job in hospital during Artsakh war

Doctors had evacuated all 63 pregnant women in the Kashatagh region by mid-October, some to Goris, some to Yerevan.

Gynecologist Armine Barkhudaryan went to the Kashatagh hospital the day after the war started in Artsakh, on September 28. The only gynecologist in the entire Kashatagh region worked there and registered 63 pregnant women.

Doctors could not know back in these days how long the war would drag on and how the situation would be in the city and in this hospital. They decided after a couple of days that at least a few pregnant women should be evacuated to a safer place.

There was a pregnant woman who had to give birth to her 9th child. According to the doctor, they knew that the birth was expected to be difficult, and they decided the most right thing would be to transport her to Armenia’s Goris, where she would be safer. They were the first to evacuate her from Kashatagh, NEWS.am Medicine reports referring to Barkhudaryan.

The doctor took the pregnant woman to Goris by her own car, while the regional administration provided a car to transport her 8 children, aged from 3 to 15 years.

The doctors of the Kashatagh hospital provided another pregnant woman with the necessary assistance the next day, evacuating her along with her sister and two young children.

According to Barkhudaryan, they realized then all pregnant women in the region need to be evacuated.

Doctors had evacuated all 63 pregnant women in the Kashatagh region by mid-October, some to Goris, some to Yerevan.

They also helped other patients during this time who came to the hospital with different questions and problems.

The situation in the hospital was more than tense all this time: the enemies were close, drones flew over them more than once, the sound of the explosions made them flinch. Doctors were afraid to turn on the lights in the hospital in the evenings, fearing to attract too much attention. Many preferred to sleep in the basement of the hospital.

It is not the first time Dr Barkhudaryan has found herself in such a difficult situation. Earlier, she had worked in Syria and Sudan. She is also known as one of the doctors who replaced the Aurora Prize laureate Thomas Catena at Mother of Mercy Hospital in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan when he came to Armenia in 2017. It was still more terrible in Artsakh than in Syria or Sudan, Armine Barkhudaryan noted.

News.am