LIANA TORNIKOVNA KHACHATRYAN: “WE CAN HANDLE IT!”

– I am the Director General of the Liga Plus medical center, which has been operating in the city of Reutov near Moscow since 2012. The Department of Eye Microsurgery has been operating in the second branch of the clinic since 2017. We are a private clinic, and the concept of its work was developed by us. It is simple: to help the patient. Help and service are slightly different concepts in spirit. In one case, there is more kindness, care and responsibility, and in the other – commerce. A medical institution, including those that operate on a paid basis, cannot be a purely commercial enterprise. Our goal is the health of the person who turned to us for help. Our patients must become healthy people whom we continue to help, by maintaining and improving their health. Such relationships are similar to those in a family. Therefore, when we were offered to participate in the Retina Dar program, we did not think for a minute, but immediately decided to join it.

– Have you often come across a different approach?

– Of course! For example, a patient is diagnosed with a disease requiring immediate treatment, but he/she is denied it because he/she is unable to pay. Or, on the contrary, a person is being taught that they need expensive medical services. This can also be harmful, because a specific patient with his/her health features fades into the background, and the desire for commercial gain comes first. But we don’t work like that. And we never did. Making money is not our main task.

– Liga Plus joined the Retina Dar program. What was required of you?

– As you know, there is the American company of consumables “Alcon”, which has offered to hold a serious charity event in Russia. They donated a very large amount of consumables for vitreoretinal ophthalmologic surgeries to Tatiana Avanesova’s RetinaFond. And Tatiana Andreevna is a vitreoretinal surgeon of the clinic. This is also why our participation in the program is logical. We provide a room for operations, all the necessary facilities and equipment, personnel, pay for the work of nurses, administrators – those who are involved in this process – and also provide additional consumables, since Alcon has donated a stock of basic materials, and other supplies are required too. Tatiana Andreevna operates on patients, who have been admitted through this program, free of charge. Today we have our first such patient. The case is complex. The program will be developed until October. The busiest two months await us. Full August and full September.

– Will your regular patients be pushed aside?

– No. Firstly, there are not so many patients with serious vitreoretinal pathology. We will take difficult cases. And, also, if a person was refused treatment in another clinic.

– … when you have to literally save them.

– Yes. We can handle it!

– Your clinic is a family business. Who came up with the idea of it – you or your older brother Gaik Tornikovich?

– Together. My brother and I always do everything together: think it over, decide. No step is taken alone, without advice.

– But the CEO is you. Are you more determined?

– No. It is not decisiveness that is needed here, but organization. I’m just organized. Girls in Armenian families are often just like that.

– … and love to learn. Is this a national trait?

– Not only girls, we all love to learn! This comes from hard work and resourcefulness, which have always been demanded by the hard life of the people. You can say, yes: these are traits of the national character. We will always find a way out, always find a way forward. And this is the road of development and goodness.

– Tell me: the need of society and people for charity – when you have to come running to rescue, act without delay and free of charge – is this a sign of an underdeveloped society or vice versa?

– Vice versa. The more a society develops, the more it opens up avenues for charity. New opportunities are opening up in medicine – and they are usually very expensive at first. Like the said vitreoretinal surgeries that were not previously a priority for benefactors. Perhaps charity is able to support and push forward development and progress. It, as a part of civilization, is becoming an increasingly serious matter, requires a serious approach, large funds and donations.