Turkey: 10 physicians died as a result of violence in healthcare in 20 years

* Photos: TTB

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The Turkish Medical Association (TTB) and medical chambers held statements for the press across Turkey on the occasion of "Day of Struggle Against Violence in Healthcare" today (April 15).

The health workers who died in Turkey as a result of violence in healthcare were commemorated in the person of Dr. Ersin Arslan, who was killed by a patient's relative on April 17, 2022 while he was working.

In their press statements, healthcare workers reiterated their request for an effective law against violence in healthcare.

Gathering in Ankara, Aydın, Batman, Bursa, Eskişehir, Çanakkale, Diyarbakır, Antep, İzmir, Van and Samsun and making joint statements, healthcare workers raised concerns that 10 physicians have lost their lives as a result of violence in healthcare in Turkey in the last 20 years.

'The government has fed into violence'

The statement of healthcare workers emphasized that violence in healthcare is within the sphere of responsibility of the state.

"Instead of ensuring that violence in healthcare mitigates, the government has been insistent on its behavior that would feed into and expand the spiral of violence," they said, underlining that "violence has become widespread and become ordinary as a result of this attitude"

The statement further read, "Violence in healthcare has turned into a natural way of acting and thinking that one turns to as an instrument to solve problems with. Insults, curses, threats, humiliation, battery and even killing of physicians and all healthcare workers have become a mainstream method to turn to in the face of problems."

The number of code white soars to 29,826

According to the statement, while the number of "Code White" emergency calls made by healthcare workers in the face of violence was 11,942 in 2020, this number increased to 29,826 in 2021.

Citing the surveys of the TTB, they also recalled that 84 percent of physicians say that they were subjected to physical or verbal violence at least once in their professional lives, but only half of these incidents were reported by a Code White or by applications to related authorities.

"Even the data on Code White shows that an average of 80 incidents of violence in healthcare happened in Turkey a day in 2021."

• What is code white? The purpose of a Code White is to identify an actual or potential violent or out-of-control person and activate the appropriate staff to respond with a patient/person-centered and therapeutic response. How to use it in Turkey? Healthcare workers in Turkey use this system by either dialing 1111 from the intrahospital line or calling "113", which offers services 24/7.

'The law does not prevent violence'

Concluding their statement, healthcare workers said:

"The TTB offered recommendations that would fix and rehabilitate this climate of violence several times; but political power holders have turned a deaf ear to these. The efforts to maintain the deadlocked healthcare system have paved the way for more violence in healthcare.

"Even an effective legislation that the government could prepare easily has been turned into an obsolete legislation that cannot prevent violence in any way whatsoever." (RT/SD)