Physicians to Erdoğan: We will stay here in this land to heal

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President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressed the women neighborhood heads in Turkey on the occasion of March 8 International Women's Day.

Targeting physicians in his speech yesterday, Erdoğan said, "They are off to work in the private sector because they are paid larger amounts of money there. Look, I am speaking frankly: So be it, let them go." The Turkish Medical Association (TTB) has responded to these remarks.

What did Erdoğan say?

Speaking at the Women's Day event, Erdoğan talked about the shortage of physicians in city hospitals by briefly saying:

"Doctors leave because they are underpaid. [...] We are the ones who built these hospitals. Isn't it the state that educated and raised these doctors? [...] I asked... How much do they earn at minimum? 8-9 thousand. They earn around 25 thousand at most. Are they off to work in the private sector in spite of this because they are paid much more? So be it, let them go.

"We will employ our newly graduated doctors here and carry on with them. We swiftly invite the ones who want to come back to Turkey from abroad, if needed. It will not remain empty around here, don't worry. It mustn't be so humane to base such a sacred profession as this on there."

It 'indicates the inability to govern'

Releasing a written statement right after President Erdoğan uttered these remarks, the TTB has stated that his speech "indicates the crisis of inability to govern". The TTB has accused Erdoğan of "making efforts to cover up the crisis in healthcare by misleading society and portraying physicians in such a way that their only demand seems to be money."

The TTB has also underlined that President Erdoğan's speech "ignored physicians' urgent demands concerning health and targeted their demand for wages with which they can lead a humane life."

Response to Erdoğan's accusations

Referring to Erdoğan's remarks further, the TTB has defined "his statement against physicians who expose the healthcare system which has been collapsed by the government, the hospitals that breed unhealthiness, the demands for health that they provoked, but cannot handle and the violence that they reflect in healthcare" as "a confession of failure".

Addressing Erdoğan, the TTB has said:

"We respond to him on behalf of all physicians: We are physicians. We have been in this land throughout the history of medicine. We are here today, too. As members of a profession which has been devoted to society, we are trying to serve people with our labor, knowledge and accumulation based on our years of education and professional experience.

"We, over the years, saw / see heads of state who said, 'Tie the doctors to trees so that they will not run away', the rural politicians who said, 'Doctors are acquisitive' and healthcare executives who said, 'Acquisitive doctors are making noise'. They are all gone, we have remained. Our profession and our professional honor have remained.

"We are not going anywhere today, either. Like yesterday, we will stay here in this land in order to give power to the powerless, offer solutions to the desperate, to fight death and illnesses and to heal."

Concluding the statement, the TTB has recalled that physicians will be on a country-wide strike on March 14-15: "We will give the necessary answer to these words together one more time on that day." (AEK/SD)