Hançerli: Multiple sclerosis patients are struggling to hold down jobs
MULTIPLE sclerosis (MS) patients are struggling to hold down jobs because of their condition and a lack of legal protection from being fired, the head of the MS Society has said.
Sibel Hançerli said that MS patients cannot work in the construction sector, or as waitress, driver or similar jobs, and generally have to find “desk-based jobs”.
“MS patients who are tired, standing in the heat and under stress can have attacks,” she said.
“Legal regulation is necessary to prevent MS patients working in the private sector from losing their jobs.
“When it is learned [by an employer] that a private sector employee has MS, they experience difficulties.”
Ms Hançerli said that under the previous government a “Commission for Disabled People” had been set up to enact a new law, and they had been informed during their meetings with the commission that regulations would be studied.
However she said that the Covid-19 pandemic and change of government meant that work on the regulations could not be carried out and that “MS patients continue to suffer”.
Neurologist Dr Hatice Aksoy said that stress and fatigue “increase the risk of attacks in MS patients” but added that “it cannot be said with certainty whether MS patients will have an attack if they work”.
While patients with “severe MS” are considered “invalids and receive a salary from the state”, patients with milder symptoms “are evaluated differently” Dr Aksoy pointed out that.
“Some patients have MS at age 18 and are bedridden by 20, while the disease could progress with mild symptoms for many years in some 16year-old MS patients,” she added.