As healthcare workers in Turkey fighting against rapidly spreading COVID-19 pandemic are seriously in danger due to the deficiency of protective equipment and unsafe working conditions, ‘‘Voice of TKP’’, the daily podcast of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), discussed on Thursday the struggle of healthcare workers in the country against the outbreak and the risks they continue to exposure.
Stating that self-devotion of healthcare workers is greatly appreciated by most of society, Voice of TKP pointed out that more and more healthcare staff are contracting this deadly coronavirus disease.
Voice of TKP also told that Turkey’s PE Network (We Breathe Down the Bosses’ Neck), a solidarity, communication and struggle network for workers initiated by TKP, receives tens of reports from healthcare workers who work with great responsibility all around the country that there are still serious difficulties in providing adequate and effective protective materials to them.
As the hygiene problems at hospitals in Turkey continue to threaten the lives of healthcare workers, Voice of TKP underlined, ‘‘The only solution found by the government authorities to the transportation of healthcare workers is to grant them the right to temporarily use free public transport. The government, which announced millions of dollars to save the capitalist against COVID-19, cannot or do not set up a separate and appropriate transportation system for the healthcare staff.’’
Thus, healthcare workers unavoidably are carrying the contamination risk from the workplaces to their families when they returned their homes, Voice of TKP warned.
The daily podcast, Voice of TKP, released on March 26 continued that the Turkish government is implementing the only ways it knows motivating and silencing the healthcare workers against this lack of protective measures by offering more money under the name of ‘‘performance’’ in return for intense and long working hours along with poor working conditions with dozens of anxiety-provoking vital deficiencies.
‘‘Health workers only demand this risk to be recognized and understood by the authorities, and they want all necessary protection measures to be taken against the COVID-19 contamination risk.’’
‘‘Healthcare workers demand safe working environments as they are fighting against this deadly pandemic. In fact, they only want to work and live in humane conditions,’’ Voice of TKP said in its recent podcast.
Asking if their demands are too difficult to fulfill for the government, Voice of TKP said, ‘‘It is actually not difficult at all. We must begin with the liquidation of marketization in the healthcare system. Any obstacles and threats to the unity and the right of the organization of healthcare workers must be eliminated, allowing them to have a voice in their working and living conditions.
‘‘All resources for the public interests!’’ the podcast released by Voice of TKP concluded.
As the rapidly spreading COVID-19 pandemic also hits one of the most vulnerable professionals ─ doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers ─ fighting against the outbreak, experts inform that 24 family practitioners and nurses only in Turkey’s Istanbul tested positive for the virus.
In Turkey, there are currently 2,433 cases and 59 deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The novel coronavirus has claimed the lives of more than 20,000 people so far, while nearly 460,000 have contracted the disease on a global scale.
