Turkish Cypriot doctors go on strike

Turkish Cypriot doctors on Friday went on a full-day strike, citing a laundry list of shortcomings on the part of the north’s ruling coalition, and saying that health services in then north are at present “unable to meet demand”.

Members of doctors’ trade unions gathered outside northern Nicosia’s Dr Burhan Nalbantoglu hospital on Friday afternoon, with Cyprus Turkish doctors’ trade union (Tip-Is) leader Ozlem Gurkut making a speech.

She complained that the ‘health ministry’s’ budget is “being diverted to the purpose of referring patients to the private sector instead of investing in public health”.

“The inability to make preventative health services effective, coupled with bad demographic policies and deep poverty in this country, have led to an increase in the number of patients being admitted and a situation where health services are unable to meet demand,” she said.

She pointed out that more than half of doctors employed in the north’s public sector are currently working with temporary contracts, and said that in many clinics up and down the north, there are “no specialist doctors”.

In some cases, she added, doctors are spread so thin that “doctors who are the only ones working at their units are on call every day of the year”.

“This practice, which should be the exception, has become the system,” she said.

To this end, she said, doctors are now working an average of 60 hours per week, before going on to say that payment for on-call shifts is often “delayed”, and that during those shifts, “doctors are forced to work continuously for 30 hours after their on-call shifts, until the end of the next day’s workday”.

“The system is sustained by the sacrifices of its employees. The system is maintained by doctors working under high medical and legal risks, with heavy emotional burdens, irregular working hours, and long night shifts,” she said.

She also claimed that resident doctors are being “subjected to forced labour”, before adding that “doctors are forced to work in a different village every day” and are “exiled from their assigned positions”.

Then, she criticised the conditions at hospitals across the north, before pointing out that the roof of the Dr Burhan Nalbantoglu hospital “leaks in the rain”, while “some surgeries can only be performed by doctors bringing their own equipment to the hospital”.

To resolve these issues, she said, the ruling coalition should devise legal regulations which govern doctors’ working conditions, as well as offering doctors the chance to complete further training.

She then called on ‘health minister’ Hakan Dincyurek to “exercise common sense and compromise” and “abandon his threats, blackmail, and distortion of facts”.

Cyprus Turkish medical association chairman Ceyhun Dalkan, meanwhile, went a step further, and called on Dincyurek to resign.

“You have blood on your hands. You have not taken a single step to help anything,” he said, before calling for bed capacity at hospitals in both Kyrenia and Morphou to be increased and more healthcare workers to be hired.

“Unfortunately, this process, which is being carried out with lies, slander, and threats, instead of consulting the doctors, has no chance of success,” he said.

Dincyurek came out fighting in return, saying that Tip-Is is “creating problems by raising concerns and taking action against adhering to full-time work”.

“They tell us about their rights. We say, ‘okay, let’s talk about your rights’. They then go on strike,” he said, before promising that the ruling coalition is “taking determined steps” to improve the quality of healthcare provided in the north.

“Our people should rest assured. We thank everyone for their support on this matter. Everyone should be at ease. We will continue the process. We say we want better service for patients. They say they want to go on strike. The public will decide,” he said.