The expert physician Güle Çınar only did what any responsible professional would do. She educated the students and other professionals at the Ankara University on the effects of the pandemic. She cautioned on the coronavirus, its dangers and how to prepare and fight it using science.
Doctor forced to retract her observations on coronavirus by Turkish authorities
A video of an expert doctor giving information on the spread of coronavirus went viral in Turkey. While the government was falsely claiming that there were no known cases of the disease, or very small known numbers, the doctor was cautioning other health care professionals at the Ankara University that there could possibly be thousands of infected people in the population due to government’s lack of enforcements.
Turkey initially claimed there were no coronavirus cases. But, this was because people were not being tested. The official claim of “not having any cases” was being questioned by the health care professionals who know that when a pandemic appears at every border around the country but “does not exist” in the very center of a hub that connects the countries that have the disease. Soon, the reality exerted itself and against all threats and punishments of the government on health care professionals, the ugly face of the pandemic appeared with full force. And Turkey was left unprepared, unable to test, unable to rise to the challenge.
Turkish government has been threatening the professionals, health care workers and the people against giving out news that was in contradiction with the official government dictums. Last week 19 people were detained by the police for their social media posts. 93 people are on the list for government investigation who have opposed the government position that the pandemic did not appear in Turkey or it was much more widespread than what the government announced.
The expert physician Güle Çınar only did what any responsible professional would do. She educated the students and other professionals at the Ankara University on the effects of the pandemic. She cautioned on the coronavirus, its dangers and how to prepare and fight it using science.
This was recorded on a video and published on social media, something the AKP party’s government frowns upon.
What has irked the Islamic, religious Turkish government was the truth the doctor mentioned that those who had returned from religious pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia had broken quarantine and disappeared in the population.
Many pilgrims from Mecca had tested positive for the virus, but they either believe their Allah will heal them or they simply don’t want to spend any time under quarantine.
In Istanbul, the infected or quarantined pilgrims protested being confined. In Konya, they clashed with the police to break through the quarantine. While fighting with the police, some pilgrim women spat at the face of the police saying, “If we are sick, then you should get sick also.”
However, the threat that doctor Çınar was cautioning comes from those religious people who had simply slipped through the security and disappeared into the public at large.
Islamic Turkish government is hard pressed at enforcing a public health implementation of quarantine against its voting base of religious bigots who refuse to stay under quarantine.
Doctor Güle Çınar of the University of Ankara was cautioning against this public health danger when she said these pilgrims brought the danger home.
The University, maybe similar to the first response to the doctors in China, immediately called the expert doctor in and forced her to retract her statements on the dangers of this pandemic.
In a new statement, she apologized and promised to be careful in her statements the next time.
The Chamber of Physicians of Turkey (TTB) however, announced they were supporting the doctor and were against all kinds of pressures by the authorities against free speech of an expert health professional. The Chamber of Physicians emphasized that those 21,000 who returned from pilgrimage at the Islamic site Mecca in Saudi Arabia and who were simply allowed to go home without a test or a check are a danger to the society, as the expert doctor had warned.
The social media has also been overwhelmingly supportive of the doctor who detailed the dangers of the pandemic but was forced to apologize for doing so. The president of DISK, the Confederation of Progressive Labor Unions, Arzu Çerkesoğlu, tweeted, “The task of those who are concerned about the health of the people should not be targeting the health laborers for the benefit of politics. They should improve the working conditions of such professionals.”
Sendika.org News (M.B.)
