R. G. KIRAKOSYAN, Lieutenant Colonel of Medical Service, Senior Lecturer, Chair, Organization and Tactics of Medical Service, Military Medical Department, YSMU

SUMMARY

Injuries are a major problem of the public health, as the analysis of the professional literature and data from official publications suggests.  Injuries cause tens of millions of cases that require emergency medical care and hospitalization. The injury and mortality rates, as well as indicators of disability and incapacity for work as a result of injuries are of reasonable concern being a serious socio-economic problem for both the health care system and the medical and social services of all states.

Military service is associated with substandard risks in terms of injuries. The analysis shows that injuries are among the main causes of death, disability, premature demobilization and incapacity for work of the servicemen, having a direct impact on the health of the personnel. This, thereby, reduces the degree of their individual skills, negatively affecting the combat readiness and combat effectiveness of the armed forces as a whole.

One of the priority tasks of the Military Medical Service of the RA Armed Forces is to preserve and strengthen the health and combat effectiveness of the personnel. Therefore, at the current stage, it seems necessary to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms of the occurrence of injuries in servicemen and develop or improve more efficient measures for their prevention, with a view on both international experience (the article provides data on the Armed Forces of the USA, Great Britain and Russia) and national specificities.

A number of medical and social problems will also be solved through the effective prevention of injuries in the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia, since if the circumstances of getting injured are ascertained to be connected with the performance of duties of military service, the serviceman remains a subject of social security of the RA Armed Forces even after demobilization.