‘Healthcare workers are not slaves’

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On the occasion of European and Global Action Week for Health and Care Workers (October 27-30, 2020), the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK) staged a protest in front of the Taksim Training and Research Hospital in İstanbul yesterday (October 28).

The protest of the confederation came amid increasing numbers of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and deaths in Turkey and the Ministry of Health's ban on health workers' resignations and retirement.

While the health workers chanted the slogan, "Healthcare workers are not slaves," the statement for the press was read out by DİSK Chair Arzu Çerkezoğlu, who is herself a physician, on behalf of health workers.

Global Action Week 4 Health and Care Workers#InvestInCare
Taksim Hospital #İstanbul @ituc @PSIglobalunion @EPSUnions pic.twitter.com/aLoORX3kLD

— DISK International (@DISK_Int) October 28, 2020

"Health workers are selflessly at the very forefront in the struggle against the pandemic at the risk of losing their health," Çerkezoğlu said.

Calling on the government to "hear the voices of health workers," she noted, "What brings health workers, who have been devotedly working for months, to the brink of retirement or resignation is the policies of the health management and the government that are far from being empathic."

'Take steps to develop a solution'

Addressing the government, DİSK Chair Çerkezoğlu reiterated that they "should take steps to develop solutions rather than imposing bans."

Çerkezoğlu listed their demands briefly as follows: "The vaccination of all healthcare workers; the recognition of COVID-19 as an occupational disease; shorter working hours for healthcare workers; and the appointment of healthcare workers who have been waiting to be appointed for years and are struggling against unemployment." (DŞ/SD)