Dozens of dentists in Armenia’s second largest city of Gyumri held a protest in front of the Shirak provincial administration’s office on Monday against the introduction of a new order of registering visitors online that is due to take effect on March 6.
Under a government decision, henceforth all dental care providers must register on a special government website and also enter into it data on all visitors. Otherwise, the dentists will not be able to provide services.
In their grievance addressed to the authorities the Gyumri dentists claimed that by the decision the government violates the Constitution and also puts an additional financial burden on dental services, which will lead to an increase in service prices.
“If they do want to apply this system, let them do it in a correct way. In its current version the system has lots of provisions that violate the Constitution and the law, which will lead to very bad consequences for us and the population,” said one protesting dentist, explaining that the new order makes confidential information about patients vulnerable to a leak.
According to the protester, the working dentists are not familiar with the new system and it is difficult to adapt to it within a short period of time. “It turns out that if you have no internet connection, you cannot attend to a patient,” he said.
“It’s an online program introduced by some company, it is not clear how protected it is and how it works,” another protester complained.
The deputy head of the Shirak province received the protesting dentist, heard their complaints and agreed with them on quite a few of the issues they raised. At the same time, the official said that the solution to the problem was not within the competence of local authorities. He said that the dentists’ complaint will be forwarded to the central government.
Facebook Forum