Ministry to protect healthcare workers

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

Doctors all around Turkey suspended all non-emergency services for one day following the murder of their colleague Dr. Ersin Arslan by the relative of his patient. DHA photo

A new notice from the Turkish Ministry of Health creates a number of regulations to prevent violence against healthcare personnel working in hospitals.

The regulations include measures such as placing security personnel and cameras in hospitals, as well as giving staff the right to quit their health service in cases of violence.

In such cases, the personnel involved would be replaced by a different staff member, who would resume the treatment under the protection of security staff. Each hospital will have a service dedicated to protecting the rights and security of its staff, which will report directly to the chief doctor at each hospital.

Each hospital will also be required to have mediation staff available in waiting areas, who will be specially trained to solve problems patients and their relatives may experience.

Medical personnel will also be given training in measures they can take to prevent violence.

The new regulations are prompted by a number of recent attacks against healthcare personnel in Turkey. Dr. Ersin Arslan died on the operating table April 18 after being stabbed several times by the 17-year-old relative of a former patient.

Protests

Dr. Arslan had been struggling to stay alive after the incident, but lost his battle during an eight-hour surgery. Medical personnel around Turkey suspended all non-emergency services for one day following the incident in protest.

In another incident, a 13-year-old patient’s father attacked a brain surgeon at a private hospital on the evening of May 9, after the doctor informed the family that their child had gliosis, not a brain tumor, with which he had earlier been diagnosed.

The lack of security measures in hospitals has begun to result in more and more similar incidents, healthcare workers have said.