This Monday the trial began against 47 suspects for the death of at least 10 babies in the framework of a broad social security fraud scheme, in Türkiye’s worst health scandal in years.
The courtroom, in the European part of Istanbul, was packed with family members and journalists. The suspects will be tried in the coming weeks. They are part of the call ‘newborn deaths gang’.
Prosecutors believe that a network of private hospital staff, from directors to doctors, emergency call operators and ambulance drivers, conspired to send healthy babies to certain for-profit neonatal care units.
Giving the parents false medical reasons, the defendants allegedly kept some of the babies in intensive care unnecessarily, sometimes for weeks.
Other babies who needed specialized care They did not receive the treatment they neededin a scandal that shocked the nation when it became public last month.
230 dollars a day
The goal was to obtain a social security payment of 8,000 Turkish lira ($230) per day that is granted to private hospitals that treat newborns, in addition to the fee charged to parents. These benefits were shared among them.
According to the nearly 1,400-page indictment, at least 10 babies died as a result of neglect and inadequate treatment over several years. The investigation began in May 2023, and as of late October, investigators were studying about 350 complaints, Turkish media reported.
“Dead children do not grow”
As the trial began, protesters lined up a row of empty strollers outside the court, one of which bore the slogan “Dead children do not grow”while others denounced the damage caused by excessive privatization in the Turkish health system.
«The night I gave birth, my baby was fine, he was healthy. The next day, They told us he had three deep vein thrombosesyeshypertension and that she had breathing problems,” Nazli Ahi, who gave birth in a private hospital in Istanbul in April 2023, told the Anadolu agency.
“Then they told me they were going to transfer him” to the neonatal intensive care unit of another hospital, he said. A few days later, her baby was pronounced dead. «If they had told us they needed money“I would have given them billions as long as they gave me my son back,” he said.
Nine private hospitals
Authorities have closed nine private hospitals in Istanbul and a neighboring province, including one run by a former health minister from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP party, who served from 2013 to 2016. And nine other health centers are under investigation.
The defendants face a number of charges, including “homicide by intentional negligence”conspiracy to defraud public institutions and creation of an organization “for the purpose of committing a crime.”
If convicted, they collectively risk spending several hundred years behind bars. Erdogan, who has said he is following the events “personally”, has promised the “severest possible” punishment for “those responsible for this barbarity.”
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