On April 26, 2022, the training session for journalists on Ethical rules for healthcare professionals was held in hybrid format. The training session was dedicated to the presentation of the international and national ethical principles of healthcare professionals and aimed at equipping journalists covering the healthcare sphere with the necessary skills on main principles of bioethics and to apply those principles in their daily practices.

The training session was opened by Laurence Lwoff, the Head of Human Rights and Biomedicine Division of the Council of Europe and Kristina Gyurjyan, the Head of Human Resources Department of the Ministry of Health.

Substantial presentations on ‘’Basic principles of ethics committees for healthcare professionals’’, “Basic principles of Ethical rules for healthcare professionals”, and the ‘’Specifics of distribution and use of information related to health’’ were made accordingly by Paula Martinho da Silva, member of the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee (IBC) as well as of the Champalimaud Foundation’s Ethics Committee and international expert of the CoE Project on ‘’Protection of Human Rights in Biomedicine’’, by Suren Krmoyan, international consultant for the Project on ‘‘Human Rights Protection in Biomedicine’’ and Shushan Doydoyan, the Head of Centre of Freedom of Information and international consultant for the Project on ‘‘Human Rights Protection in Biomedicine’’.

The substantial presentations were followed by active discussion on the topics addressed.

The ethical rules for healthcare professionals were developed with the expert support of the Council of Europe’s Project on the ‘’Protection of Human Rights in Biomedicine’’ and has been adopted by RA Government decision N-182-N, from 17 February 2022.

The Training session was organised under the framework of the Council of Europe’s Project on ‘Protection of Human Rights in Biomedicine’’ in Armenia.