While the workload on doctors increases, the Ministry boasted: 'We are treating twice as many patients as the OECD'

While the omnibus bill on health was being discussed in the Health, Family, Labor and Social Affairs Committee of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Deputy Minister of Health Şuayip Birinci emphasized that the number of applications to emergency services and the patient load per physician in Türkiye were well above the OECD average. However, the increasingly heavy workload of physicians was presented by Birinci as an indicator of success.

Responding to criticism from MPs regarding emergency room occupancy rates, Birinci said, “Our doctors see twice as many patients as the OECD average,” and evaluated the current density not as a problem but almost as a source of pride. However, experts constantly state that this density leads healthcare workers to burnout and reduces the quality of healthcare services.

“200 DOCTORS LEFT, 250 DOCTORS RETURNED”

Regarding doctors going abroad, Birinci said, “200 doctors went and 250 doctors returned to Türkiye by 2024,” claiming that the health system maintains its attractiveness. However, the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) and health professional organizations announced that the number of doctors going abroad broke records in recent years.

“Deputy Minister of Health Şuayip Birinci responded to the proposal and the evaluations of the MPs regarding the problems experienced in the health system as follows:

"Regarding the questions about why so many people come to the emergency department; our number of emergency department applications has doubled the OECD in the last 20 years. In fact, we are faced with a picture that it has increased four and a half times ours. Our physicians see twice as many patients as the OECD average. When you look at it this way, you can guess that we all make unnecessary applications and that a significant portion of the applications to the secondary care will be resolved in the primary care. There are many legislative studies on this. This is also in this bag. We are working to strengthen the primary care in this regard. In this six-month period, we brought 15 million of our 26 million people who have never visited a family doctor to our family health centers. What happened here; we only conducted three million cancer screenings and sent 120 thousand citizens at risk of cancer to our hospital. 12,286 of them were diagnosed with really serious cancer. When you look at these, our early stage detection rate was around 20 percent recently. Last year, it was 51 percent, this rate will probably go up much more.

When caught at an early stage, the part of cancer screening that touches human life, which is only done as of November 1, is very valuable, but I would like to declare that the country has saved nearly 5 billion financially. Turkey is the riskiest antibiotic country in the world after America. According to 2019 figures, 42 thousand people die from antibiotic resistance. Maybe we will not be able to find antibiotics to use in the future. This is not an individual problem, but a social problem. We have reduced the antibiotic rate by 50 percent. When you reduce this, your mortality should increase, but it has decreased by 11 percent in the second stage. Our hospital stay has not been extended either. In other words, we have not encountered any negative results because we have reduced the antibiotics.”

MHRS PROBLEM 87 PERCENT SOLVED!

“The MHRS issue has been on the agenda a lot, but these problems have decreased by 87 percent. Currently, 25 percent of the people waiting are waiting because they say, ‘I absolutely want to be examined by this doctor.’ We call them back when they leave a reserve appointment as a system. We are faced with a process where 90 percent of yesterday’s problems have been solved.

Currently, the difference in physicians per population between Ankara and Ağrı is 2.1. This difference was 13 times," he said. First, lastly, for physicians who went abroad, "Doctors who went from Türkiye were discussed. 200 doctors went to 2024, 250 doctors returned to Türkiye. I leave the evaluation that Türkiye has lost its attractiveness to your discretion."

TALKS WILL CONTINUE ON JULY 3

The discussions on the 29-article "Law Proposal on Amendments to Certain Health-Related Laws and the Decree Law No. 663", which includes regulations in the field of health, by the AKP, ended in the TBMM Health, Family, Labor and Social Affairs Commission after the first article was accepted. Discussions on the remaining articles will continue on July 3 at 11:00.