Attacks on Medical Personnel in Turkey

08/07/2013

Doctors and other healthcare workers in Turkey, and the facilities in which they work, are facing sustained and intense attacks for treating patients injured during the current civil unrest in the country.

By providing emergency assistance to the injured, medical workers in Turkey are fulfilling their duty under the International Code of Medical Ethics. Had they not done so, they would have risked international condemnation, faced professional disciplinary proceedings, and violated the Turkish penal code. Equally, as ethical practitioners, failing to provide such care would have breached the principles by which health workers practise and would have undermined their sense of responsibility to the society they serve. In the current circumstances, rendering treatment should be regarded as an ethical response to a need, not a political response to the unrest.

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