Turkish Medical Association Chair: At least 20,000 health workers are infected with Covid-19

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Emergency physician Abdurrahman Demir in Urfa, family physician Engin Ünaldı in Sinop, general surgeon Ahmet Aydın Şener in Ağrı, Prof. Refik Çaylan in Sivas and internal diseases specialist Turgut Erkutlu in Manisa were the five doctors who died of Covid-19 in the past week. Since the start of the outbreak in March, 32 doctors and 66 health workers have lost their lives.

Turkish Medical Association (TTB) Central Committee Chair Prof. Sinan Adıyaman has spoken to bianet about the situation of health workers and increasing coronavirus cases in the county.

Saying that an ambulance driver lost his life yesterday (August 27) due to Covid-19, Adıyaman noted, "We lost five physicians, 10 health laborers in a week. Along with our friend who lost his life yesterday, 32 physicians and 66 health workers have lost their lives until today."

Minister hasn't made a statement since April

"The Minister of Health made the first and last statement regarding health workers in April. He has not made a statement for three [four] months. Cases are rapidly increasing, with the increase in cases, the risk of health workers' infection also increases.

"After the quick opening process, which is called the 'normalization,' cases have increased very rapidly. They say there are 250,000 patients right now but we know that this is not the case. The real number is about 10 times higher than what is stated. When it is considered that the number of [infected] health workers is about one percent of the total number of patients, there are about 20 to 25 thousand infected health workers. But we think that this number is much higher."

CLICK - Turkish Medical Association: There are 10 times more Covid patients than what ministry says

"Resignations and appointment requests have increased"

"Because the numbers the Ministry of Health announces every day do not reflect the truth. The minister says there are 1,400 patients daily. Only the average of Ankara and İzmir reaches 1,400. When we add other provinces, we understand that the number of cases is much higher than what is stated.

"Outpatient clinics and intensive care [units] are full. The workload of physicians and health workers increases every day. There is an obvious burnout. Many of our friends in Batman, Diyarbakır, Denizli, Alanya, Manisa, Eskişehir, Ankara have started to resign. Many of our friends request their retirements or appointments."

"We want to meet with the minister"

Recalling the letter the TTB sent to the Ministry of Health yesterday, Adıyaman said, "This is the point we have come with the lift of measures and encouraging people to go on holiday with loans. We are rapidly moving towards the second peak.

"Until now, our recommendations and warnings have not been taken into account and the necessary arrangements have not been made. So we, as TTB, stated that we wanted to meet with the Minister of Health in person in order to prevent deaths.

"We stated that there should also be representatives of the Coordination Committee of the TTB Specialists' Associations. We stated that the meeting should take place as soon as possible to avoid more deaths."

Meanwhile, health workers have launched a campaign on Twitter under the hashtag "We are dying" (#ölüyoruz).

(AÖ/VK)