Turkey’s Health Ministry issued a circular today announcing that “due to the coronavirus pandemic measures” resignations of the health workers would not be accepted.
According to the document, healthcare workers will not be allowed to take their annual leaves and retirement procedures were also suspended with mandatory exceptions.
Healthcare workers in Turkey were resigning to protest the lack of measures to contain the pandemic and harsh working conditions.
Disbelief over official Covid-19 figures is common among healthcare workers due to inconsistencies between the official counts and reports from the ground.
The Turkish Medical Association (TTB) -which has long been a target of Erdogan- has repeatedly stated in recent months that the outbreak is much worse than what is being reported in the national tally.
Commenting about the ban on resignations on healthcare workers, Şebnem Korur Fincancı, the chairwoman of the TTB said that this decision “demonstrates the (true) extent of the pandemic in the country.”
Opposition figures stated that despite the significant danger of the coronavirus pandemic, government is hiding the true extent of the spread to keep the economy moving. There is also a high level of public mistrust of official coronavirus data released by the Health Ministry in Turkey.
