ARDA/ICMM Vascular Mission

10 days after finishing Plastic surgery mission Vascular mission started with Armenian-French doctor from Paris, Dr. Karagulian in cooperation with “St Gregor Lusavorich’ hospital, February 11-20, 2017.
My short testimony: Having vascular mission was my vision already several years. Seeing ladies (having many children), adults and other people’s legs varicose veins and complications caused MI and stroke, I have been thinking and praying for this mission. As always, God hears our prayers and makes divine ways to bring the same vision having people together. I met dr. Karagulian in the plane while coming back from Lebanon training and he was on the way to Armenia. Before Boarding I had been trying to change my middle seat for having more comfort but I couldn’t manage as God had decided us to meet that day and dr. Phillip’s wife was sitting next to me and he next to her. He was quite disappointed of doing any charity work for Armenia because of past wrong encounters. I immediately understood that it was from God I met him and before the plane landed, I already made vascular mission plans in my mind. I talked about missions we had been doing here through ARDA and Dr. Minasyan’s respect and willingness to host professionals in his hospital for missions. Next day, he called me and said he would like to meet and promised to come for the mission. After he left, I made the arrangements with dr. Minasyan (head of ‘St. Gregor Lusavorich’ hospital, informed ARDA , US through emails and worked on his documents for getting permission from Health Ministry.
Since November 2016 patients have been examined and registered for the mission by me, at Armenian Canadian clinic. During mission 100 and more patients had been examined by Dr. Karagulian and 20 of them were chosen for sclerotherapy and phlebotomy. Many patients already had deeper vein insufficiency and varicose changes, so they were prescribed to have big surgery instead of sclerotherapy. They need angiosurgeon’s intervention.

Some of the patients already had completions because of not visiting doctors and not wearing compression socks (which is quite expensive and not affordable for each patient). Three patients from ARDA were involved in the mission and one of them received sclerotherapy, others need compression socks only.

Most of the patients were poor. Day by day new patients appeared at our door but we were not able to put all of them in our list. Seeing the demand and our willingness for helping patients, Dr. Karagulian agreed to come again after 6 months.

All the patients once again passed duplex examination by Dr. Karagulian, echographists were observing his work among angiologists and learning from him. Dr. Karagulian’s working experience was enough to teach all of us!!!

Dr. Karagulian likes teaching and he has residents working under his control. So, he agreed also to give lectures in Yerevan State Medical University next time.

The Head of the ‘St. Gregor Lusavorich’ hospital and staff showed great respect to Dr. Kargulian and we went back with gifts and blessings!
He went back agreeing with us to come back again. Last day Armenia TV Journalists came and took interview from us and showed on TV several times.
Praise the LORD for this successful mission. I would like to thank to all who stood with us, supported or prayed for this mission.

Report: By dr. Syuzanna Voskanyan

“ICMM” NGO PRESIDENT
ARDA, US MEDICAL DIRECTOR