August 14, 2006 The streets of Ankara, the capital of Turkey echoed with the voices of the health care workers today. The professionals marched to protest against forceful unpaid leaves, lowering of the wages and to protect their jobs, work places and their future. The management of Ankara Medicine Faculty has forced 400 contract workers […]
August 14, 2006
The streets of Ankara, the capital of Turkey echoed with the voices of the health care workers today. The professionals marched to protest against forceful unpaid leaves, lowering of the wages and to protect their jobs, work places and their future.
The management of Ankara Medicine Faculty has forced 400 contract workers to a month of unpaid leave while lowering the wages and benefits of the regular workers.
The workers facing the results of the government’s “Transformation in Health Care” program gathered in front of the Ankara Medicine Faculty then marched to meet other health care laborers at İbn-i Sina hospital, also run by the Ankara university.
The health professionals opened a large banner reading, “Transformation in Health Care program costs our jobs and our bread. Let’s protect our Future!” During the march, the laborers chanted, “Equal pay for equal work”. “JDP Government is bad for your health”, “No work, no bread, no peace”, “Hospitals belong to the people, they can not be sold!”
When the marchers met with other health professionals waiting for them at İbn-i Sina hospital, Nevruz Polat, the representative from SES (Health and Social Service Laborers Union) read a press release.
Polat said they had repeated at every opportunity that the government’s “Transformation in Health Care” project was in fact, “Collapse in health care” project. He said, “The governments who applied every program of the international finance organizations to the word in the last 25 years bear the real responsibility for the destruction of health care, for the marketization of health and the selling off of the system.
Polat said, “The management of the University Hospitals who, instead of opposing the neo liberal policies or criticizing the government which tries to shape the health care according to these principles; instead of doing their jobs; instead of defending that health is a right; instead of defending public health care, signs policies that victimizes the health care workers. Managers who boast of making hospitals look like a five star hotel first thought of expropriating the rights of the health care workers when the crisis struck.”
After Nevruz Polat, who ended his talk by pledging to continue their struggle to defend their jobs, their work places and their future, other speakers from Ankara Chamber of Physicians and another health care union, Dev-Sağlık İş spoke to the crowd and called for a united struggle against the policies of the government.
Sendika.org – Ankara
