‘An enlightening experience:’ Glendale Adventist volunteers travel to Armenia to deliver medical aid
Medical professionals from Glendale Adventist Medical Center returned this week from their second mission trip to Armenia, where they provided free medical services and care to residents in an underserved community.
Transportation, planning and on-site logistics were again coordinated by the Armenia Fund, which helped expand operating rooms and specialty medical services at sister site Noyemberyan Hospital, located in the small Armenian town of the same name.
Glendale Adventist brought Noyemberyan and 30 surrounding villages the same 12 services they brought last year, and added orthopedics, ophthalmology, gynecology and pathology this year.
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Kevin Roberts, Glendale Adventist’s president and chief executive, was among the 40 volunteer missionaries who committed from dawn to dusk to not only treat 1,700 patients over five days, but give hospital employees enough education and resources to better sustain the facility over the coming years.
“The idea is not do just these little bumble-bee, one-flower-and-move-on visits. It’s to create a more self-sufficient hospital,” Roberts said, who worked as an operating room nurse at the site. “We didn’t want to supplement stable resources. We wanted to go where we could make the biggest difference.”
Armenia Fund is committed to build out Noyemberyan over the next several years due to its small size and limited resources.
Roberts said he saw marked improvements at the Armenian hospital, which allowed medical staff such as registered nurse Filor Izanian to tend to the growing number of patients coming in compared to last year.
“We saw three times what we expected in a five-day period, and I don’t have the words to describe how wonderful it was there to help these people,” Izanian said. “I’ve never been so happy to be a nurse, to be able to give my service to these people.”
Izanian joined cardiologist Dr. Arby Nahapetian in observing and addressing the needs of many people who have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or a disproportionate amount of gastritis.
Glendale Adventist family physician Dr. Sirvard Khanoyan saw many of the same issues with the hundreds she treated each day and attributes poverty as the main reason many they had not seen a doctor for years. Khanoyan used the daily line of patients outside of Noyemberyan Hospital as a chance to educate them about better health and eating habits.
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FOR THE RECORD
10/31, 10:20 a.m.: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of the Armenian hospital in the fourth reference. It is Noyemberyan, not Narembeen.
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“Going there and doing this really reenergizes you. It sort of reminds you of why you went to med school, why you became a physician,” Khanoyan said. “It’s an enlightening experience. It’s very rewarding.”
Having left Armenia when she was 12, Khanoyan also saw the mission as an opportunity to give back to her homeland.
“I think we brought hope because when you look at the people, the poverty, seeing the group of doctors available and helping them for free — people were very appreciative,” Khanoyan said.
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Jeff Landa, jeff.landa@latimes.com
Twitter: @JeffLanda
