Union raises concerns over adverse conditions in the wake of a health worker's suicide

* Photo: SES Union Diyarbakır

Click to read the article in Turkish

The Diyarbakır Health Platform has made a statement regarding nurse Bedia Özayoğlu Menteşe, who committed suicide yesterday (June 24).

Özayaoğlu Menteşe was working at the Hematology Service of Dicle University Hospital in Turkey's Kurdish-majority Diyarbakır province. During her shift yesterday, she left a three-page letter and claimed her life.

Within the context of her death and the adverse working conditions of healthcare workers amid novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, Health and Social Service Laborers' Union (SES) Amed Branch Executive Board member Gülhan Tekin has made a statement and raised concerns over the aggravated working conditions of healthcare laborers amid pandemic.

Underlining the increasing psychosocial risks posed by these aggravated conditions, Tekin has noted that "when these risks are added to the burn-out, mobbing, chronic fatigue, workplace stress and violence faced by healthcare laborers, their suicide emerges as a fact too big to be hidden."

'There was not a nursery'

Sharing details about the life and work conditions of the deceased nurse, Tekin has informed the public that "there was no nursery where she could leave her child 24/7." Accordingly, Tekin has underlined that "if a nursery had been opened in every workplace, as they had long been demanding, at least this problem of the deceased nurse would have been solved."

Tekin has also indicated that the husband of the nurse was also a nurse himself. However, he was isolated due to COVID-19. "He was one of the millions of healthcare workers who could not see his loved ones due to COVID-19 pandemic," Tekin has underlined further.

She has reiterated that "they see suicides as occupational accidents and homicides" and called on authorities to take the necessary steps.

'Women laborers work in more adverse conditions'

"In addition to gender inequality, women health laborers are employed in precarious conditions, they are deprived of their economic and personal rights and their work conditions and work load are getting more and more aggravated, which leads them to give up on their lives," she has protested.

Reminding the audience that Dicle University Hospital has been treating patients diagnosed with or suspected to have COVID-19 since March, Tekin has also noted that they have been deprived of their right to be in isolation for 7 days after working in a COVID-19 service for 14 days.

Call for a safe work, a safe future

"Health workers do not want to work in a workplace where working conditions are getting more and more aggravated, their labor is not seen, they are not held in esteem, they are subjected to mobbing, strings are pulled and their unions are taken into account when they demand a change of place," Tekin has protested further.

Concluding her remarks, she has made a call for safer working conditions and, thus, a safer future for all healthcare laborers. "We do not want to lose a single more life," Tekin has indicated.

Diyarbakır Health Platform consists of Health and Social Service Laborers' Union (SES), Diyarbakır Medical Chamber, Diyarbakır Chamber of Pharmacists, Diyarbakır Chamber of Dentists, Social Service Specialists Association, Mesopotamia Psychologists Initiative. (RT/SD)