The death of 10 newborns has shaken the confidence of millions in Turkey’s health care system

ANKARA, Turkey. The mother thought her baby looked healthy when he was born 1.5 months early, but staff quickly rushed him to the neonatal intensive care unit.

It was the last time Burju Gokdeniz saw her child alive. The doctor in charge told her that Umut Ali’s heart had stopped after his health suddenly took a turn for the worse.

Seeing her son wrapped in a shroud 10 days after his birth was the “worst moment” of her life, the 32-year-old e-commerce specialist told The Associated Press.

Gökdeniz is one of hundreds of parents who have asked for an investigation into the deaths of their children or other loved ones after Turkish prosecutors accused 47 doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and other health workers of neglect or negligence in the deaths of 10 newborns since last year. year.

Medical professionals say they used their best judgment in caring for the most delicate patients imaginable, and face criminal penalties for the undesirable results.

Appalled parents say they have lost faith in the system, and the cases have sparked so much outrage that in October demonstrators staged protests outside hospitals where some of the deaths took place, pelting buildings with stones.

The prosecutor’s office does not say how much this scheme allegedly earned. After the scandal broke, at least 350 families appealed to the prosecutor’s office, the Ministry of Health or the president’s office to investigate the death of their loved ones, the state-run Anadolu agency reported.

Prosecutors are seeking up to 583 years in prison for the main defendant, Dr. Firat Sari, who ran neonatal intensive care units at several hospitals in Istanbul. Sarah is accused of “creating an organization for the purpose of committing a crime”, “fraud of public institutions”, “forgery of official documents” and “negligent homicide”.

Prosecutors say the evidence clearly points to medical fraud for profit. An indictment filed this month accused the defendants of falsifying records and placing patients in the neonatal care units of some private hospitals for lengthy, and sometimes unnecessary, treatment in facilities unprepared to treat them.

Turkey guarantees healthcare to all citizens, and its public healthcare system reimburses private hospitals that treat eligible patients. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party, in power since 2002, has promoted the expansion of private health facilities to improve access to them in the country of 85 million people.

After years of infertility treatment, Ozan Eskichi and his wife welcomed twins — a boy and a girl — at one of Sari’s hospitals in 2019. Although the children seemed healthy at first, both were placed in intensive care. The girl was discharged after 11 days, and the boy died after 24 days.

Under questioning by prosecutors, Sari denied allegations that the babies were not properly cared for, that the neonatal units were understaffed or that his staff were not properly trained, according to the 1,400-page indictment.

He told prosecutors: “Everything is being done according to procedures.”

An Istanbul court this week approved the indictment, which contains hundreds of pages of transcripts of secretly recorded phone conversations between the suspects, and set a trial date for November 18.

The way the case horrified the nation meant that the accused were increasingly isolated.

Lawyer Ali Karaoglan said he and two other lawyers who represented Sari during the investigation recently withdrew from the case. Authorities have since revoked the licenses and closed nine of the 19 hospitals involved in the scandal, including one owned by a former health minister.

The scandal prompted the main opposition party leader Ozgur Ozel to call on the state to confiscate and nationalize all the hospitals involved. Erdogan said those responsible for the deaths would be severely punished, but cautioned against placing all the blame on the country’s health care system.

“We will not allow our health care community to suffer because of a few bad apples,” Erdogan said, calling the alleged perpetrators “a gang of people devoid of humanity.”

“This gang … committed such terrible atrocities using the opportunities provided by our state to provide citizens with better and more affordable medical care,” Erdogan said.

He added: “Those who commit such barbarism will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law for their crimes. As president, I will continue to follow this issue personally to ensure that these murderers who toyed with the lives of innocent babies for financial gain never see the light of day again.”

Hokdeniz, who gave birth in 2020, said she trusted Sara and accepted her son’s death as natural until she saw the scandal unfolding on TV news and social media.

“Everything started falling into place like dominoes,” she said.

Eschichi, too, fully trusted Sara, whose assurances he now considers a cruel deception.

“The sentences he said to me are standing before my eyes as if they were yesterday,” he said.

Sibel Kosal, who lost her daughter Zeynep at a private hospital in 2017, is also looking for answers. She says the scandal has undermined her trust in the health care system and left her in constant fear for her surviving children.

“They killed mom and dad,” she said.

Kosal pleaded with the authorities to take immediate action.

“Don’t let the children die, don’t let the mothers cry,” she said. “We want the world to be livable, where our children are safe.”

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Badendick reported from Hamburg, Germany.