Survey: 48.3 percent of retired physicians have economic hardships

* Photo: İzmir Medical Chamber

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The İzmir Medical Chamber shared the results of a survey carried out with the participation of retired physicians yesterday (March 3).

Addressing the reporters in a press conference held at the medical chamber, İzmir Medical Chamber Chair Lütfi Çamlı said that the online survey was participated by 1,349 retired physicians.

Çamlı noted that heavy workload, dissatisfaction with work, mobbing and incompetent executives were the leading factors urging the physicians to retire and shared the following survey results:

"Three out of every four physicians continue working after retirement; 16.6 percent of them do more than one job. 93.1 percent of the physicians who retired from private medical institutions, 89.1 percent of the ones who retired as workplace physicians and 81 percent of the ones who retired from doctor's offices continue working after retirement.

"99.4 percent of retired physicians earn less than 13 thousand lira and 18 percent of them earn less than 5 thousand lira.

"One third of the surveyed physicians say that they do not regret having chosen the profession. 21.7 percent say that they would not have preferred it if they had thought like they do now and 28.1 percent say that they would prefer to practice their profession in another country.

"When they were asked about their problems, 59 percent of retired physicians said that they had 'concerns about the future', 48.3 percent said that they are having 'economic hardships' and 41.2 percent said that 'their social relations have declined/ social circle has narrowed'.

"In response to a question on problems pertaining to the profession, they expressed 'attacks on the profession' (70.9 percent), 'policies of transformation in healthcare and commercialization of healthcare' (80.6 percent) and 'the profession being brought into disrepute' (85.8 percent)."

'We will keep on struggling'

Commenting on the survey results, İzmir Medical Chamber Chair Çamlı said that physicians are happy neither on the job nor during retirement. He noted that the problems can be solved by improving their employee personal rights, working and economic conditions. Lütfi Çamlı said:

"Knowing that what compels us to resign, retire, suffer from burnout and migrate is this healthcare system, we will keep on waging our struggle by saying: 'Our Labor, Our Word'. (RT/SD)