Healthcare workers set out their demands
THE Cyprus Turkish Doctors Union (Tıp-İş) and Cyprus Turkish Nurses and Midwives Union held a protest strike outside Lefkoşa Dr Burhan Nalbantoğlu State Hospital last Friday to draw attention to their problems and list their demands.
Tıp-İş chairman Dr Mustafa Taşçıoğlu emphasised that doctors, nurses and all healthcare professionals have been “working with all their heart and soul, even risking death, for more than two years during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic”.
He said that in return, the health problems of “both the public and personnel” have been “ignored” by the government.
Dr Taşçıoğlu said that industrial action launched on December 27, 2021, was “suspended” after January’s general election “in the name of public interest and so our people would not suffer further” following “assurances” from Health Minister Ali Pilli.
He said, however, that “no concrete steps have been taken in the past month” to address his union’s concerns and that Tıp-İş “cannot accept that the Health Ministry continues to pressure and threaten doctors”.
“Problems in the field of healthcare are increasing day by day and each new issue creates a greater danger than the previous one,” Dr Taşçıoğlu said.
“The [issue of] intensive care units’ bed capacity, which is of vital importance for non-Covid healthcare services, [is even worse than] the fire disaster on February 28, 2020 [at Lefkoşa State Hospital].
“The respirators, which the Health Minister boasted about during TV programmes. . . have been left to rot in dusty warehouses.
“There is still the need for an intensive care nurse but no concrete steps have been taken in this regard. All of these things lead to patients being referred to private healthcare institutions, costing the state millions of lira.
“However, medicine, equipment, personnel, nurses, doctors, building maintenance and investments could be paid for with this money.”
Dr Taşçıoğlu then set out a list of problems that he demanded solutions to, including, among others, the lack of employment of permanent doctors in accident and emergency services; cuts to overtime payments and overtime payments not being made on time; the “inadequacy” of intensive care bed capacities; the continuation of “arbitrary political appointments”, while existing vacancies are not being filled “in accordance with the law and based on merit”; and the “failure” to prevent “acts of violence against public healthcare workers on duty and not taking legal measures”.
Dr Taşçıoğlu also highlighted wider problems affecting healthcare workers, such as the “devaluation of the Turkish lira, the high cost of living and the astronomical price hikes on basic food items”.