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Preliminary investigation into the newborn’s case, who died in Gyumri on March 12, 2016, is still in progress.

Note that on the night of March 11, 2016 L. D. gave birth to a baby boy through Caesarian section in Gyumri maternity hospital. The following day, the newborn’s condition got worse sharply and the maternity ward staff members urgently called his father and told him that the newborn should be taken to ‘Mother and Child Austrian Hospital’ to connect him to the breathing device. It was impossible to organize the newborn’s transfer in time; shortly after transfer to hospital, the newborn died. The parents of the deceased newborn insist that his death was caused by inadequate medical care. They also doubt that the dead newborn is not their child but another child.

During the preliminary investigation into the criminal proceedings initiated by the RA Investigative Committee lasting for over a year, no one faced charges. As assured by the RA Prosecutor General’s Office, some procedural actions were already taken based on the aggrieved party’s motions. Also, the 2nd forensic genetic expert examination was conducted and confirmed that L. D. and H. P. were the parents of the deceased newborn.

Note that during the first forensic genetic expert examination, according to the experts, it was impossible to separate DNA from H.P.’s blood sample and the expert could not clearly answer the question of his paternity.

However, other essential circumstances have not been examined so far.

Thus, on March 28, 2017 the expert opinion of the forensic medical commission expert examination assigned by the preliminary investigation body was received identifying a number of shortcomings in the work of Gyumri maternity ward medical staff.

The experts identified shortcomings not only in the medical care provided to the newborn but also in the newborn’s medical record that was filled out in a “negligent and incomprehensible” way, as they put it.

According to the experts, the newborn should have been transferred to a higher-level hospital right after his birth and in that case it would be possible to prolong his life.

Nevertheless, the investigating body has not given a legal assessment to the actions of the health providers who failed in their work; moreover, in response to victim’s representative and lawyer at HCA Vanadzor A. Zalyan’s application, A. Harutyunyan, representative of the RA Prosecutor General’s Office, excluded any causal links between the newborn’s death and the health providers’ actions and referred to the experts’ opinion that in case of avoiding those shortcomings, it might be possible to prolong the child’s life for a short time.  

Also, the investigation has not examined so far the information provided by L. D. on the power failure at the maternity ward. The criminal case file lacks any documents supporting the treatment of the mother’s and newborn’s health problems revealed by the expert examination. Another argument giving rise to suspicions is that according to the experts, those problems were impossible to detect at the prenatal stage.

Taking into account these shortcomings, the aggrieved party also expressed its distrust to the investigating body and by its complain to the RA Prosecutor General’s Office of April 27, 2017 demanded to assign the case to another unit of the RA Investigative Committee. But in his letter of May 11, 2017, the representative of the RA Prosecutor General’s Office expressed no need for doing so.

The criminal proceedings were initiated 18 months ago but the investigating body has not identified all the circumstances of the newborn’s death yet and still shows no will to investigate circumstances revealed by the expert examination.