THE NEW YORK TIMES: Doctors, worn down by grueling hours and violence, are emigrating in rising numbers, undermining one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s signature achievements.
ISTANBUL — Anxiety rose after an assistant doctor died last fall when she plowed her car into the back of a truck after a long shift.
Then there were the growing cases of violence. An assistant doctor abandoned his career after a patient stabbed him in the stomach and hand. A pregnant nurse was hospitalized after being kicked in the belly.
The worsening economy and soaring inflation, which has reduced some doctors’ salaries close to the level of the minimum wage, has brought many to a tipping point, driving them in growing numbers to search for better opportunities abroad.
Their departures are a sad indictment of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who burnished his own reputation by expanding universal health care over his 18 years in power. It was one of his signature achievements. For many of his supporters, that action alone remains their main reason to support him.
But the strains of those overhauls wrought by Mr. Erdogan, in addition to those brought by the pandemic — and now galloping inflation — have undermined the very professionals on whom the health system depends.
Doctors complain of a grinding workload, diminishing returns for their work, a drastic loss of respect for the profession under Mr. Erdogan, and an increase in physical violence from their own patients.
More than 1,400 Turkish doctors left their posts to work abroad last year, and 4,000 over the past decade, according to the Turkish Medical Association, the largest association of medical professionals in the country. Many more are preparing applications and have requested certificates of good standing from the organization, officials said. » | Carlotta Gall | Monday, February 7, 2022
