'There is no distinction between a case and patient in medicine'

* Photo: Evrim Aydın - Ankara / AA

Click to read the article in Turkish

Turkish Medical Association (TTB) Central Council Chair Şebnem Korur Fincancı and a delegation accompanying her visited Republican People's Party (CHP) Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, CHP Secretary General Selin Sayek Böke and Balıkesir MP Fikret Şahin today (November 26).

Addressing the reporters after the meeting, Korur Fincancı said that they paid a visit to the party to express their good wishes in the wake of Alaattin Çakıcı's messages insulting and threatening Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who then filed a criminal complaint against Çakıcı.

When she was asked a question about the debates on the number of COVID-19 cases in Turkey, Korur Fincancı said, "Patient and case is the same thing in medicine, we do not make a distinction between them."

CLICK - Turkey starts including asymptomatic cases in its daily count

Following a meeting of the Coronavirus Science Board, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said that the number of asymptomatic cases would also be shared starting from November 25 "at the request of people."

Amid growing suspicion regarding the accuracy of the official figures, Minister Koca admitted in late September that the Health Ministry had been excluding asymptomatic cases from its daily count since July.

'If we cannot manage pandemic, people die'

Within this context, Korur Fincancı referred to the TTB's previous statements about the case numbers and said, "168 people died yesterday; if we cannot manage the pandemic properly, people die. Every single one of them is a life, our loved one, our relative. For this reason, we say that the outbreak must be managed properly. 28 thousand is already a very limited number."

Noting that the numbers regarding the outbreak are in fact higher than the announced figures, she reiterated that except for essential production, production must be halted for at least 2, ideally 4 weeks, and collective mobility of people must be limited by meeting the needs of workers.

'I hope that "occupational disease" will be passed'

CHP Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu also spoke about the proposal to recognize COVID-19 as an "occupational disease/hazard" for health workers.

Referring to the proposal put forward in the report of Parliamentary Commission of Health, Family and Social Affairs, Kılıçdaroğlu said:

"It is nice to see that there is a common will about this issue at the Parliament. I hope that it will be brought to the General Assembly, accepted there and, therevy, this problem will be resolved."

Regarding the work conditions of health workers amid pandemic, he said, "Health workers are fulfilling their duties in extremely difficult conditions. They are on duty 24/7. The fact that everything they said has turned out to be true, albeit a bit late, has increased our trust in physicians and the TTB."

'We trust the numbers said by physicians'

After Şebnem Korur Fincancı indicated that the recently announced numbers of cases are much lower than the ones that they see in the field, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said, "We trust the numbers announced by physicians. Because healthcare workers and physicians are the ones who are on the job, they are the ones who are at the spring of the water. Physicians are personally a hundred percent witnesses to this incident."

Kılıçdaroğlu also added that it was not a politically or morally correct approach to not listen to the ones who witness the incident in person. "It has turned out who the guilty is. If we find someone guilty, then it has turned out who tells the truth. At last, they had to confess it," he added. (AS/SD)