Turkey has been rocked by the disturbing news of the arrest of a so-called ‘newborn gang’ which is accused of being responsible for the death of multiple babies.
According to an Istanbul prosecutor’s indictment, healthcare workers in both state and private hospitals allegedly arranged the transfer of newborns to intensive care units in private hospitals, as a way to extort money from the state and distraught parents. These transfers were made when state hospitals still had capacity or the infants did not require intensive care.
Some claim that profit-oriented private hospitals without sufficient government oversight are incentivised to carry out unnecessary medical interventions
Through the scheme, the gang secured large sums of money from the Turkish Social Security Institution (SGK) and the families of patients. To facilitate its crime, the network reportedly paid bribes to employees at central emergency call centres, to give parents false diagnoses, and to justify the transfer of their children to private hospitals.
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