Turkish doctors stop work to demand rights

Doctors walked off the job around Turkey on Tuesday as part of a two-day labor action to protest a full-day work law and performance-based fees, as well as demand the protection of their personal rights.

The doctors called on all health workers to participate in the protest, which will suspend all health services on Tuesday and Wednesday, except for emergency services and those for bedridden patients.

Participating health workers set up tents and stages at Haydarpaşa Numune Hospital in Istanbul and Hacettepe University in Ankara, where they distributed leaflets and unfurled banners reading: "There is a duty in this hospital for labor security, salary security, life security, occupational independence and equal free healthcare for everybody."

"We do not want the [government’s] Health Transformation Program to victimize us, as health workers, or victimize our people," Hüseyin Demirdizen, the general-secretary of the Istanbul Chamber of Medicine said in a speech at the Haydarpaşa hospital, adding that doctors were demanding secure working conditions.

The chamber represents doctors who have been protesting the hiring of subcontractor companies and the usage of contract-based work.

Health Minister Recep Akdağ said the protests were led by "small marginal groups" when he was asked about the labor action while visiting the eastern province of Erzurum on Tuesday to promote the Justice and Development Party, or AKP’s, parliamentary candidates.

The minister said he did not expect major disturbances in health services.

"I do not believe that doctors will be [involved] in activities that will create distress, except maybe [the members of] some small marginal groups," the health minister told reporters.

Akdağ had earlier said he would file criminal complaints against the health workers if "even one patient is harmed due to the protest."

Barriers to healthcare

Citizens should be able to obtain health services without paying patient contributions or supplementary fees, Demirdizen said at the Istanbul protest, adding that the chamber’s members want to provide free, equal and high-quality healthcare.

"We want to remove all barriers preventing safe service [for patients] and a secure salary [for workers]. We came together to make our demands for the public’s right to health," he said.

The performance-based system makes doctors work based on money, which poses a threat to patients, said Doctor Ayşe Oya Övünç, a clinic head from the hospital’s gastroenterology department.

Patients cannot be diagnosed in five to 10 minutes as required by the performance-based system, said Dr. Mecit Çalışkan, the clinic head of the psychiatry department.

Protests in Ankara

Several health workers marched from the Ankara hospital to the Health Ministry building, carrying posters that read "Performance[-based health] makes us sick", "A sleep-deprived doctor means death” and "Warning: Health is in danger."

The Health Ministry’s statement that 70 percent of the population is happy with health services in the country contradicts Ankara Chamber of Medicine research showing that 73 percent of doctors were not satisfied with the level of healthcare provided to citizens, said the chamber’s chairman, Bayazıt İlhan.

The "performance-based system" is not the right kind of motivation for doctors, who should not be paid according to the number of patients they treat, İlhan said. When he asked participants whether they would accept the system, the workers responded with a resounding "no."

İlhan said physicians want to receive a salary that will help them in retirement and to work in an environment where their personal rights are protected and they are not exposed to violence.

"Eighty percent of the country’s physicians feel hopeless about their future," he said.

The Chamber of Medicine chief also objected to the lack of basic libraries and laboratories at many of the country’s medical faculties.


/Hurriyet Daily News/