Living in Turkey

There has been no electricity in a city in Turkey for days. A person has probably died of cold in their house. A government that is accustomed to twisting every problem that arises, linking every problem to the past failures of the opposition and previous governments, pointing to candles and gas lights and almost claiming that they have invented the electricity themselves, has seen patients visiting hospitals because they could not afford to fund the electricity required to keep their medical machinery running. While praising patient-guaranteed company hospitals, this must be the dream they imagined. An epidemic they couldn’t handle, or rather, make no effort to cope they've managed to fill hospitals as they wished.

Being swayed with the issues of deferred health care, add in the COVID-19 deaths that they didn't properly record we were stuck with extra deaths of over 300,000. It's a variant they underestimate by saying it's like the flu. They ignored the number of official cases as "pandemic" exceeding 100,000 while walking around the country and the threats they pose to scientists who have taken on the task of carrying water to the mill and alerting the community. They ignored the warnings made by the scientists. Not only did they ignored it, but they also compromised on their duty to protect public health. They did their best to intimidate our professional organization with threats.

In a country where violence goes beyond being used as a problem-solving tool and is seen as a pleasure yielding tool, while dividing the health workers left alone with the epidemic into castes fighting each other, they've not only destroyed our health but also the country. They’ve destroyed the value of labour, by objectifying man, and enjoyed foreign generations turning on each other.

The Turkish Medical Association is a professional organization yes, the organization of physicians... Just when it's an organization of physicians an organization that fights for humanity, for humanity. Like medicine... Medicine is not just a profession, if it were, you could choose a profession which involved putting in less effort, getting less tired, there’s a reason you chose such a hard road. Medicine is a way of life! Every person you prevent from sickness, feeling proud with every neighbourhood where you can help people access clean drinking water, a life which is lit by the light seen in the eyes of an recovered patient, the peace you feel after a successful surgery, spending the night worrying about  the post operation recovery process of a person you know little of, and to do all this with great labour, and to feel part of a great labour force and knowing that when one of those pieces fails, your own labour will be wasted. Medicine is to be able to live like this.

That is why the physician organization is able to prevent alienation from its labour, to increase the value of labour. He's struggling to get it back. Physicians use their expertise as a way to sustain life, not to run out, to protect the health of the people, without compromising their values so that they can continue to produce... The professional body is one of the fighting tools of all heath workers, it’s a place where they produce health working side by side. Together with the labour organizations, it is a defender of the health sector that it is in.

From the epidemic to the war, from infringement to trees in the forest, from mines to electricity hikes, public health our professional organization, which has a duty to stand up to anyone who threatens you, us, all of us on February 8th to G(Ö)REV [DUTY]. For our health, for our rights, as a humane way of life to be able to maintain a medicine that we can maintain, in a health system that such a medicine will establish, for a world that produces together and where we are not alienated from our labour... Let's all work together. Let's be on DUTY!