Leading Turkish businessman İbrahim Çağlar laid to rest in Istanbul

ISTANBUL

Important names in Turkish politics and business joined the funeral ceremony for leading businessman İbrahim Çağlar on Dec. 12 at the Istanbul Marmara University’s Faculty of Theology Mosque, bidding farewell to the deceased, who died at age 57 on Dec. 11 after a heart attack.

Among the attendees were President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, former Prime Minister and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy Ahmet Davuoğlu and many ministers.

“Firstly, may Allah grant rest upon the soul of the deceased, my valued friend İbrahim Çağlar. We took the path in politics together, especially in recent times. He was also the head of the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce [İTO], an important institution in Turkey. I condole the business world,” Erdoğan said during the ceremony.

Following the mid-afternoon prayer, Çağlar’s body was taken to the Sahrayıcedid Cemetery for burial.

Speculations of negligence in hospital

Meanwhile, speculations of negligence in the hospital have emerged surrounding Çağlar’s death, after he went to a private hospital in Istanbul on the night he passed away after suffering from “a feeling of numbness and pain in his arm and chest,” daily Hürriyet columnist Vahap Munyar wrote on Dec. 12.

The doctors on call examined Çağlar, performing an echocardiogram (EKG) on him to measure his heart’s electrical activity at around 1 a.m. on Dec. 11, Munyar wrote. After the doctors reportedly pointed out the possibility of gas as the cause of the pain, they prescribed him with medication and sent him home.

However, on his way home with his wife, Çağlar was reported to have passed out in the car. As his wife drove back to the hospital, medical staff gave him a cardiac massage and led him to the hospital’s main center in another district, where the businessman was subject to an angiography.

“One of the clots was blocked, so we placed a stent. We will keep the patient here for two days under observation. His body was starved of oxygen for a while, which might have created a problem,” the doctors told Çağlar’s wife, pointing out the amount of time that had passed while Çağlar was unconscious in the car.

Çağlar died following another heart attack near twilight the same day, leading to speculations that there might have been negligence on the part of the health personnel, especially by the doctors on call.

Turkish Society of Cardiology President Prof. Dr. Mahmut Şahin told daily Hürriyet it was “medically wrong” to simply say “there was nothing wrong” with a patient after examining their EKG if they had shown symptoms of a heart attack. “If someone comes to the emergency room with pain in the upper stomach, heart attack protocol should be applied. It is extremely wrong to diagnose a patient with a stomach ache and gas and send them home by looking at their EKG,” said Şahin.

Çağlar was elected to lead the İTO in 2013, one of the most powerful representatives of Turkish trade with more than 400,000 members.

His role at the İTO started in 1999 with his membership to the assembly of the organization. He was the vice president of the executive board from 2004 to 2009.