The Union of Health Care and Social Workers SES reacted to the complaints, criticisms and denouncements coming from private hospitals designated to treat the coronavirus patients. The business organization “The Private Hospitals Association” had demanded that since their income had dropped 80% after coronavirus treatments the government should pick up the tab for their “losses.”
After ignoring and minimizing the risks of the coronavirus pandemic, Turkey tries to catch up by socializing health care facilities and hospitals. In a move that is a dollar short and a day late, all hospitals were instructed to test, identify and treat the coronavirus patients. However, private and other hospitals belonging to “foundations”, mostly owned by religious sects, are complaining that their profits show a decline.
The Union of Health Care and Social Workers SES reacted to the complaints, criticisms and denouncements coming from private hospitals designated to treat the coronavirus patients. The business organization “The Private Hospitals Association” had demanded that since their income had dropped 80% after coronavirus treatments the government should pick up the tab for their “losses.”
In its statement SES said, “The private hospitals are the first to abandon the ship.”
Protesting the private hospitals’ concern about the profit rates when huge number of deaths are expected, the union said, “The private sector hospitals complain that the private insurance corporations are refusing to pay for the coronavirus treatments because the pandemic is not covered. We are hearing that due to this, the private hospitals started not to accept or treat coronavirus patients last week. The hospitals are forcing their workers to unpaid leaves and constantly complain about the late payments they get from the government.”
SES union explained that, “In 2002 the private hospitals were 23% of all hospitals, however the number of beds they provided was only 8%. Under the AKP party rule where privatizations increased the private hospitals to 36% of all hospitals, the beds provided by the private sector have only increased to 21%. This means that only 21 out of 100 beds in the health care belongs to the private hospitals. Private hospitals contribute only 41% of ICU beds, and provide only 43% of ventilators. While the public and university hospitals respond to their responsibilities with self-sacrifice and with full capacity, the private hospitals whine to the government, ‘Either you pay us or we are not in this.’ They are trying to use their beds and medical equipment as a pressure tactic to make profits.”
The labor union also criticized the private hospital owners for their threat of shutting down. The statement said, “In the last 20 years, the flow of income from the Social Security Office and direct payments from the patients allowed the private hospitals to prosper. When we look at the profits in 2018 it is obvious that the hospitals will not go belly-up if they have to treat the coronavirus patients in the next 3 months. In 2018, the Social Security Office has paid 11 million to the university hospitals, 29 million to public hospitals and 9.5 million to the private hospitals. Again, in 2018, private insurance corporations made nearly 800,000 in profits and paid mostly to private hospitals a sum of 4 million.
“When profits are an issue, the private hospitals first eliminate the workers which shows how important it is to have the public health in the hands of the public sector. After making high profits from the public offices and peoples’ payments, their threat of ‘We cannot handle this’ in the first month of the pandemic shows how correct our union was opposing the privatization of health care.”
Sendika.org news (M.B.)