MHP leader calls for shutting down Medical Association

ANKARA

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli criticized a call by the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) for a two-day strike of health workers over the killing of Ekrem Karakaya, a cardiologist at the Konya City Hospital, by a relative of a patient.

“I say every time; The Medical Association should be closed. My physician brothers and sisters should reclaim their own organization and go to a new organization,” Bahçeli told reporters on July 9.

“It is necessary to save the profession from a handful of obscure doctors disguised as anarchists,” he added.

Drawing attention to the upcoming elections, Bahçeli said, “As Türkiye will experience a general election on June 18, 2023, we should consider leaving everything to the will of the nation and wishing that our nation makes the choice. Otherwise, it is not possible to get anywhere with three to five indefinite organizations that contradict the nation in every event and become an instrument of politics.”

Citing the killing of doctor Karakaya, Bahçeli said instead of expressing national sorrow and condemnation over the incident and seek for peace, “some so-called professional groups have made the mistake of creating social turmoil, becoming politicized and acting arrogantly in a way that invites the resignation of the political power.”

Hacı Mehmet Akçay shot and killed Karakaya with a pistol on July 6. Akçay, who allegedly committed the murder because he blamed Karakaya for the death of his mother, Kezban Akçay, who died of a heart attack a month ago, committed suicide with the same weapon after the attack.