November 12, 2018
On 10 November 2018, IFHHRO sent a letter to the President of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, Mr Binali Yildirim, urging the Assembly to withdraw a new bill approved on 6 November. The bill allows the exclusion of doctors who lost their jobs under the State of Emergency Law Decrees, from employment in private hospitals working in contract with the Social Security Agency. The law also means exclusion of newly graduated doctors without ‘security clearance’.
In the letter, Adriaan van Es (IFHHRO Secretary) states: “Expelling thousands of doctors through this law, and depriving millions of people from appropriate medical care, is a violation of the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health (General Comment 14 of Art 12 in the UN Convention of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), of which Turkey is a party. Exclusion of doctors without ‘security clearance’ is in violation of medical neutrality and the World Medical Association Declaration of Geneva.”
