News Center- Healthcare workers have struggled against the Covid-19 pandemic in Turkey and all around the world by making great sacrifices but they have had hard times. They have become the target of violence while struggling with the coronavirus and they have also lived on the breadline. As the Covid-19 pandemic reveals the disruption in the system, the healthcare workers concerns about the future. The healthcare workers have faced many problems such as supplementary payment, worsening working conditions, suspending collective bargaining agreements, ignorance of their family and special conditions, lack of protective equipment... Healthcare workers, who were applauded all over the country in the first days of the pandemic, are now being ignored. Their demands are ignored.

On October 27, 2020, the annual leaves of healthcare workers were suspended except for legal reasons. Moreover, healthcare workers have been banned from resigning due to the lack of sufficient healthcare workers. They cannot be retired. They have faced many violations of their rights.

Fadime Kavak, the chairperson of the Social Services and Health Workers' Union (SES) Şişli Branch tells us the problems they face.

“We are on the breadline”

Fadime Kavak says health workers faced many problems before the pandemic outbreak and these problems should be visible during this period.

“The Minister (The minister of health) is proud of the healthcare system, but those who form the healthcare system are healthcare workers. We haven’t got in return for this. We haven’t worked for money. But we have worked professionally. The economy of the country is obvious. The economic troubles have increased even more due to the pandemic. And as healthcare workers, we have suffered from these economic troubles, because our wages are so low. We are trying to make both ends meet. Our supplementary payment hasn’t been paid for two months. Many healthcare workers try to live on the supplementary payment. In the past months, one of our colleagues, a nurse wanted to work in intensive care despite receiving cancer treatment. She has three children. People risk their lives in order to make a living. Our colleagues have no other chance to make a living. If you don’t have extra income, you cannot live in big cities like İstanbul.”

Increase of wage by 3%

Mentioning that people think that healthcare workers’ wages are raised due to the statement made by the Minister of Health, Fadime Kavak emphasizes that they try to make a living with very low wages. “Memur-Sen (Confederation of Public Servants Trade Unions) talked with the ministry. They decided to increase our wages by 3%. A 3% wage increase is a very funny increase compared to their fake TÜİK statistics (Turkish Statistical Institute producing official statistics). Actually, the real inflation rate is higher. We can see how it is high when going shopping or paying bills. Therefore, we think that this increase has lost its validity. They added 4.36% according to the inflation rate. But this increase is not enough. For instance, the President's salary was increased by 29% in recent years. We demand the same increase.”

We want to get access to the Covid-19 vaccine

Fadime Kavak emphasizes that the Covid-19 will not fade until the end of this year and she mentions the COVID-19 vaccine researches, “Why don’t they use an easier method? I am unable to understand. We want to get access to the Covid-19 vaccine easily as Çağla Şikel and Alişan (famous people in Turkey). We need vaccines more than them. 341 healthcare workers lost their lives. We are one of the priority groups. After us, people 65 years or older should be vaccinated. We want to live in a country where we feel valuable as human beings. As a union, we struggle for this.”