Turkey rocked by private healthcare scam linked to infant deaths
At least 21 people in Turkey stand accused of running a scam involving newborn babies and private hospitals, which resulted in the death of at least 10 infants.
The indictment seen by Middle East Eye involves 21 suspects who are said to have taken advantage of the Turkish public healthcare system by transferring newborns from public hospitals to private practices for extended stays in order to receive public payouts.
Those accused unnecessarily redirected infants to 19 private hospitals using accomplices who operated 112 emergency phone lines.
The accomplices sent the babies to the private institutions even when state hospitals were available.
By doing so, the suspects are said to have benefitted from payments made to patients from the Turkish Social Security Institution (SGK), which pays out more for private healthcare for infants.
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While in care, the newborns were neglected and in some cases left to die.
The accusations are a blow to the government, whose health reforms in the early 2000s promoted the use of private hospitals to shorten wait times for treatment in the public sector.
'Cruel and unacceptable'
Turkish Health Minister Kemal Memisoglu on Saturday said that licences belonging to 10 out of 19 hospitals had been already revoked.
He also defended his track record on the case, pointing out that it was he who filed the official report to prosecutors about the allegations last year when he was the provincial chief of the health ministry in Istanbul.
“We will follow the process that has been brought to court until the end," he said during the televised remarks on Friday. “It is cruel and unacceptable.”
The 1399-page indictment says that newborn babies were kept in intensive care for long periods by falsifying their health conditions as more serious than they were, thus securing higher payments from the SGK.
The indictment accuses the ringleader of the scheme, "Dr FS", in what has been dubbed the “Newborn Gang” by the Turkish media.
Prosecutors allege that Dr FS made deals with the intensive care units of many private hospitals in Istanbul to receive the patients.
As the owner of Medisense Health Services, the doctor regularly paid bribes to emergency room transfer personnel. By doing so, a system was created to direct patients to certain private hospitals.
In some cases, the infants were mistreated at the private institutions and the negligence resulted in death. Members of the gang are alleged to have prepared fake reports to hide the causes of death in several instances.
Dr IG, an alleged member of the group, had even given instructions to a nurse to kill a baby who was kept alive on life support for a long period of time to extract more funding.
'She stayed in this hospital for one night. I took her body in the morning'
- mother of baby who died under the private healthcare scheme
It is additionally alleged by prosecutors that drugs not used in treatment were shown as used and were instead sold on the open market.
The parents of the infants were also asked to buy medical equipment or make additional payments to the hospital to increase the gang's profits, according to the indictment.
BN, the mother of a newborn who died in the neonatal unit, told Turkish newspaper Milliyet that her daughter stayed in intensive care for three nights at a public hospital.
Afterwards, a doctor told her to transfer her baby to another hospital which would provide better treatment.
“The doctor told us that the intensive care fee was 7,000 lira ($204) per night and that my daughter would need treatment for two weeks. We accepted,” she said.
The mother made a payment of more than $1,000 and was asked to purchase other medical necessities.
“Then I left the hospital. They called me the next day and the doctor told me that my daughter had died in the early morning,” she said.
“She stayed in this hospital for one night. I took her body in the morning.”
'Hundreds of babies'
The hospitals mentioned in the investigation include Reyap Hospital, Beylikduzu Medilife Hospital, Bagcilar TRG Hospitalist and Avcilar Hospital.
The investigation was triggered after an unnamed individual filed a petition to the Turkish Presidency in 2023 regarding the death of “hundreds of babies” under the care of the gang.
It is not clear how long the scheme was in operation.
After the case became public, the criminal ring is alleged to have hired an unnamed individual with political connections to threaten the prosecutor investigating the issue.
That conspirator was taped making threats and was subsequently arrested last week.
Turkey's main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) spokesperson, Deniz Yucel, called on the health minister to resign in light of the allegations.
"In any other country, the government would resign,” he said. “In our country, however, the politicians who are responsible cling to their positions with great shamelessness and brazenness."
Yucel argued that former minister of health, Fahrettin Koca, and his predecessor, Mehmet Muezzinoglu, were also responsible for the deaths.
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