The cause of death of 12 infants in Turkey could have been the actions of doctors, nurses and emergency workers who wanted to extort money from the Social Security System, the Duvar website reported on Saturday. In connection with this case, 41 people were detained and 14 were arrested.
According to investigators, the suspects used two methods to withdraw PLN 8,000 from the Social Insurance System (SGK). Turkish lira ($233) per patient per day. First, healthy newborns were placed in neonatal units in private hospitals with which we cooperated. False blood test results for young patients were entered into the system to give the impression that the children were sick.
The second method involved simply transferring children to private hospitals, which often lacked sufficient medical equipment and resources. The suspects allegedly obtained over one billion lira ($29.2 million) in this way.
They called to save children
The Ministry of Health detected 12 cases of suspicious neonatal deaths. Some of the infants who died were said to have suffered from protein and vitamin deficiencies. In order to save the children, inexperienced nurses had to call doctors who were not on site, the website reported. However, Osman Kucukosmanoglu, head of the Istanbul Medical Chamber, is skeptical about media reports. He concluded that “it is not possible for this case to have such a dimension.” However, he admitted that due to lack of places, children are sometimes transferred to private institutions.
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