Healthcare workers in Turkey: We cannot breathe

* Photo: SES

Click to read the article in Turkish

"We are at a loss for words! We cannot bear it any more! We cannot breathe! We have burned out! We cannot work in safe environments; we live in an inconceivable stress and under threat of violence any moment."

The Health and Social Service Laborers Union (SES) Central Executive Board made a statement about violence against healthcare workers today (January 21). The statement came a day after nurse Ömür Erez was killed by a man at a family health center in İstanbul yesterday.

Reading out the statement on behalf of the union, SES Chair Selma Atabey said that perpetrators of violence are protected by impunity and it leads to an increase in attacks. She noted that in addition to male violence, violence against health workers has been increasing as well.

'Turkey doesn't protect women, health workers'

Referring to official statistics, Atabey noted that 50 health workers are subjected to verbal or physical violence every day: "Hospitals are now associated with violence, not with health. In the current health system, everyone is unhappy and health laborers are the unhappiest."

Giving examples from the previous incidents of violence against healthcare workers in Turkey, Selma Atabey said:

This country does not protect women and its health laborers. It brings the healthcare system into a deadlock and throws health laborers before society as if they were guilty. As violence against health workers remains unpenalized, it turns into an act of seeking rights. Health laborers burn out as they see how worthless they are considered to be and nothing happens even when they give a white code. This country does not penalize violence in healthcare.

"Despite all these incidents of violence, we unfortunately see in the current situation that sincere steps are not taken and violence is not slowing down. The Law on Violence in Healthcare is for show, it is to abate the reactions of health laborers. Besides, it is not effectively enforced. Assaulters come through the front door of the police station and leave through the back door."

'Medical examination in 5 minutes'

Atabey underlined that the healthcare system itself paves the way for violence against health laborers, noting that "the administrators' demeaning remarks about health workers turn them into targets of violence and emerge as one of the major reasons behind the current situation."

Criticizing the "Transformation in Healthcare Program" and the reduction of the duration of medical examination per patient to 5 minutes in the public sector as a result of it, Selma Atabey said that the related program "makes an attempt on health workers' lives."

She further noted that "health workers, crushed under mounting drudgery and workload, face increasing incidents of violence every day".

Concluding the statement, SES Chair Atabey recalled that they will go on strike for a day on February 8 to express their demands concerning their working conditions and to put and end to violence.

She also called on the ministries of health and labor to hold an emergency meeting with labor and professional organizations to take the necessary measures and to resolve the problem as soon as possible and to develop an urgent action plan against violence." (AS/SD)