The owner of the hospital chains had previously suggested for the government to take over all private hospitals then to give it back to them after several months. Not responding to the responsibilities of hospitals in such pandemics, many patients had needlessly died in the hands of private hospitals who were disinterested in curing patients while concentrating on how to maximize profits.
Health care workers in private hospitals face a bigger danger of contracting the corona virus than others. They are consistently denied any personal protective equipment while attending to their patients in Turkey.
The private hospitals have geared up to maximize their profits in Turkey while the pandemic devastates every corner of the country. The private hospitals are forcing health care workers to work extra-long hours while not paying their social security premiums. The wages have nearly halved under the new provision called “short work” while the workers are forced to work even mora than the full-time workers.
The new rule introduced a new mode of work previously non-existent in Turkey that allows the bosses to force their workers to unpaid leave where the worker does not get paid and does not qualify for the unemployment insurance. Many hospitals, while complaining about the increased work load, are forcing their workers to take this new unpaid leave, in effect forcing them to hunger.
The Devrimci Sağlık İşçileri Sendikası, the Revolutionary Union of Health Care Workers in Istanbul protested yesterday such dangerous employment of its members and other health care workers around the country.
Gathering in front of a Bahat hospital, a conglomerate chain that owns several private hospitals, the union announced, “We will not leave the health care workers’ lives to the will of the private hospital bosses.”
The owner of the hospital chains had previously suggested for the government to take over all private hospitals then to give it back to them after several months. Not responding to the responsibilities of hospitals in such pandemics, many patients had needlessly died in the hands of private hospitals who were disinterested in curing patients while concentrating on how to maximize profits.
Erdoğan Demir, the union’s general secretary, said, “The health care workers are not allowed to even wear masks because the bosses think wearing masks will annoy their patients.”
The nurses and other employees are not given PPEs, and many have to wash and reuse the equipment manufactured for single use.
Sendika.org news (M.B.)