A tense situation has arisen in Maralik town of Armenia’s Shirak Province. People have closed off the Yerevan-Gyumri highway because of the closure of the maternity hospital of Maralik, its director Vram Melikyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

Melikyan informed that the governor of Shirak, Tigran Petrosyan, is negotiating with these people who have blocked the road, and soon the employees of the Ministry of Health will also arrive.

Employees of the Maralik maternity hospital and town hospital, as well as a large number of residents of the town and surrounding villages who have made use of these medical facilities since the years of the ex-USSR, have blocked the aforesaid road, and they demand that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan personally solve the problem once and for all.

Armenian News-NEWS.am had spoken with a staff member at this maternity hospital who had said this hospital was closing because the births there were less than the prescribed limit.