Physician dies of COVID-19, death certificate says ‘natural death’

* Photo: TTB / Twitter

Click to read the article in Turkish

The Turkish Medical Association (TTB) has raised concerns that the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) deaths are hidden in Turkey.

In a message shared on its Twitter account yesterday (April 1), the association has announced that the cause of death of a physician who was treated for COVID-19 for four months has been registered as "a death from a noninfectious disease/ natural death" in the death certificate.

Sharing the death certificate of the physician under the hashtag #ŞeffafBilgi (Transparent Information), the TTB has said:

"In the death certificate of a physician whom we lost on March 30 while s/he had been treated in a COVID-19 intensive care unit for 4 months, it has been written that it was 'a death from a non-infectious disease/ natural death.'

"A struggle cannot be aged against the pandemic by hiding the deaths and covering up the occupational disease."

4 aydır COVID-19 yoğun bakımda tedavi görüyorken 30 Mart günü kaybettiğimiz bir hekimin ölüm belgesine "bulaşıcı olmayan hastalık/doğal ölüm" yazıldı.

Yineliyoruz:
Ölümleri gizleyerek, meslek hastalığını örtbas ederek pandemiyle mücadele yürütülemez!

#ŞeffafBilgi pic.twitter.com/KeG7OSYCPj

— TürkTabipleriBirliği (@ttborgtr) April 1, 2021

TTB said 'Number of deaths over 100,000'

In a statement released by TTB Central Council Member Assoc. Prof. Ali İhsan Ökten a few weeks ago, it was indicated that the official death numbers shared by the Health Ministry do not reflect the truth:

"(...) While the case number has topped 3 million in our country, the death toll has topped 30 thousand. However, we know that there are over 100 thousand deaths in our country. Since the very beginning, we have been saying that these data do not reflect the truth..."

(EKN/SD)