March 14 Medicine Day has been celebrated annually in Turkey since 1827 when the modern medicine education was launched in the Ottoman era.
Despite the Justice and Development Party (AKP) claims that they have achieved a “revolution” in the field of health, Marxist Associate Professor İlker Belek disproves the government and shows that six thousand babies lose their lives every year due to the poor healthcare system in Turkey.
Belek demonstrates that antibiotic resistance against the three densest infectious diseases has the highest level in Turkey among the OECD countries. Also, per capita medical examination time is only 6 minutes in the country, another figure disproving government's claims.
ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC FIGURES AND LIES OF AKP
Belek argues that the most scientific way to evaluate the health performance of a country is the difference between the actual infant mortality rate and the expected infant mortality rate in that country.
Accordingly, expected infant mortality rate is 8,7 per thousand in Turkey, a country with a total population of 80 million, where per capita health expenditure is 500 US Dollar and per capita income is 10,000 Dollar. Belek says. However, actual infant mortality rate is 12 per thousand in Turkey despite the health ministry says it is 7 per thousand. In other words, 12 of 1000 newborns die without reaching one year of age.
Belek demonstrates that Turkey’s actual infant mortality rate is %40 more than the expected rate. It means that Turkey’s health performance is poor at the rate of 40%. 6 thousand babies are dying every year because of the unqualified health system.
AKP’S PRO-MARKET POLICIES DETERIORATE PUBLIC HEALTH
The figures also show that general problems of Turkey are stemming from AKP-led pro-market health policies and socioeconomic issues such as poverty, unemployment, and income inequalities.
Despite the Justice and Development Party boasts about its ‘Health Transformation Program’, scientific figures demonstrate that public healthcare system has been further deteriorated in Turkey following the pro-market privatization policies of the government. Privatization of health sector has culminated in great profits for the capitalists while the lower classes of the society have to cope with limited access to qualified healthcare.
