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On December 23, the RA NA Standing Committee on Health Care, Maternity and Childhood with the support of the Open Society Funds-Armenia organization in the Armenian-American Health Centre organized parliamentary hearings on the RA draft law on Psychiatric Aide authored by the RA Government, where the NA deputies, representatives of the RA Ministry of Healthcare, other concerned ministries, Yerevan Municipality, Marz Centres, psychiatric organizations, international and local NGOs and medical workers took part.

In his opening remarks the Chair of the RA NA Standing Committee on Health Care, Maternity and Childhood Ara Babloyan has noted that the goal of the hearings is to discuss the amendments being proposed by the draft law, touch upon the protection of the rights of the person with mental disabilities, reveal the problems of the psychiatric sphere and find possible legislative solutions for overcoming them.

Highlighting the holding of the similar discussions, the RA Human Rights Defender (HRD) Arman Tatoyan has noted that there are numerous problems, which need to be urgently solved in certain cases.

The RA Deputy Minister Healthcare Sergey Khachatryan, presenting the RA draft law on Psychiatric Aide, has stated that the RA draft law shall be revised, as there are numerous problems in the functioning law that is not possible to solve with regulating documents. The speaker talked in detail about the important provisions of the draft law and submitted new definitions.

The Chief Psychiatrist of the RA Ministry of Healthcare Samvel Torosyan presented the situation of the psychiatric services in Armenia.

The Doctor of the Department for Prevention of Ill-treatment and Torture of the RA Ombudsman Office Staff Laura Gasparyan introduced the analysis of the HRD Staff observations concerning the human rights in the sphere of psychiatric aide and service.

The Head of the Helsinki Civil Assembly Vanadzor Office Artur Sakunts touched upon the problems of providing psychiatric aide and their legal regulatory ways.

The Docent of Khachatur Abovyan State Pedagogical University Lilit Baghdasaryan in her speech presented Spitak Care House as an alternative model of services provided to the persons with long-term problems of mental health.

Summing up the hearings the Chair of the RA NA Standing Committee on Health Care, Maternity and Childhood Ara Babloyan thanked the participants for the concerned discussion urged them to submit recommendations in written form to the Committee, which will help to improve the law.