Assistant physician dies in a car crash: ‘36-hour shift kills’

* Photo: Twitter

Click to read the article in Turkish (1) (2)

25-year-old assistant physician Rümeysa Berin Şen, a fresh graduate of medical school, crashed into a parked lorry in the capital city of Ankara on her way back from the Ankara City Hospital, where she had been returning from a 36-hour shift at the public hospital.

Stranded inside the vehicle after the crash, Şen's dead body could be taken out of the vehicle by fire brigade and paramedic teams after an hour.

Rümeysa Berin Şen had recently graduated from the faculty of medicine and won the Examination for Specialty in Medicine (TUS). In July 2021, she started working as an assistant physician at the Ankara City Hospital's Gynaecology and Maternity Department.

The accident happened while Şen was on her way back from a 36-hour shift, which has sparked harsh criticisms about the heavy workload and poor working conditions of health personnel in Turkey.

The Ankara Medical Chamber, in a message on its social media account, said, "We have lost a young colleague of ours... We are so sorry and enraged! We have lost a fellow assistant physician as a result of intense workload and shifts without sleep on alternate days."

Benan Koyuncu from the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) Human Rights Branch also tweeted her condolences and criticism: "We are deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague. Hear the voices of physicians, who are made to work in inhumane conditions with shifts on alternate days and without leave after the shift and who are subjected to mobbing and violence."

The TTB Assistant and Young Specialist Physicians Branch also raised concerns about the working conditions on Twitter.

Protests to be held on October 25

Amid these condolences for the deceased assistant physician and criticisms about the heavy workload and working conditions of healthcare workers in Turkey, the physicians have decided to protest today (October 25).

In all provinces across the country, physicians will hold statements for the press with the slogan, "Not an accident but murder."

Posing messages under the hashtags "#36SaatNobetOlmaz (There cannot be 36-hour shifts), #36saatnöbetcinayettir (36-hour shift is murder), #yorgundoktorlarölüyor (Tired doctors are dying), physicians will commemorate Rümeysa Berin Şen at 12.30 pm today.

As TTB Chair Prof. Şebnem Korur Fincancı announced the press statements to be held across Turkey on her Twitter account: "We call on all assistant physicians across the country to commemorate our colleague and to lay claim to our rights on 25.10.2021 Monday at 12.30 pm."

25.10.2021 Pazartesi günü saat 12.30'da tüm asistan hekimleri ülkenin dört bir yanında hastanelerde meslektaşımızı anmaya, haklarımıza sahip çıkmaya çağırıyoruz. https://t.co/bh3idhE1ZK

— Sebnem KorurFincanci (@SKorurFincanci) October 23, 2021

Physician Halis Yerlikaya from the TTB also tweeted, "Today, we lost a friend, a life as a result of the working conditions caused by intense workload and shifts on alternate days. We have paid a very heavy price for the failure to improve the working conditions of assistant physicians, about which we had been warning for years. A 36-hour shift is killing."

Bugün yoğun iş yükü, gün aşırı uykusuz nöbetlerin yol açtığı çalışma koşulları sonucunda bir arkadaşımızı, bir canımızı yitirdik. Yıllardır uyardığımız #AsistanHekim'lerin çalışma şartlarının düzeltilmemesinin bedelini çok ağır bir şekilde ödedik. #36saatnöbetöldürüyor pic.twitter.com/D7ExO8uY8R

— Halis Yerlikaya (@hlsyrlky) October 23, 2021

(RT/SD)