During his visit to Mardin, Health Minister Dr. Fahrettin Koca made statements to the Anadolu Agency (AA) reporter about the Second White Reform process, the “gray code” application against violence, new applications such as the remote health system called "Telemedicine" and the work carried out for earthquake victims in need of prosthetics.
Koca said, “In the coming period, we will strive to eliminate the causes of violence in healthcare. Violence is a situation with multifaceted reasons. One of the most important reasons is the working environment. We want to make working environments more qualified with a higher capacity to serve our patients.”
Pointing out that 32 thousand medical personnel have been employed to enable doctors to spend more quality time with patients, Koca said, “We want to strengthen the primary care in order to reduce the number of patients directly coming to hospitals which are secondary and tertiary care health facilities.”
Early warning system “Gray Code” comes into effect in hospitals
Minister Koca stated that in addition to organizing hospital environments to combat violence in healthcare, they also carried out a joint study with the Ministry of Internal Affairs on security measures to prevent violence.
Stating that they are planning to increase the number of security personnel in hospitals within this framework, Koca said, “We are also working on an early warning system that can be called “Gray Code”, which will be activated before the White Code. With this pioneer code, especially in cases where violence is thought to be possible, the police, hospital security officers and hospital administration will be informed. During this process, the health service delivery will continue. The police station will be informed of the risk of violence with the Gray Code, but the arrival of the police officers to the hospital will be activated if the White Code is given. Our aim is to prevent violence before it occurs, and it can be considered as a preliminary alarm system.”
If the person who commits an act of violence comes to the hospital again, they will be monitored with “Gray Code”.
Explaining that some applications will be introduced into the system for people who have been given a White or Gray Code due to previous acts of violence in hospitals, Koca continued as follows:
“When a person who has previously been given a Gray Code or a White Code comes to the hospital in the next period, a Gray Code will be given again for them. In other words, that patient will receive the service, but will be under the control and knowledge of the security personnel and the administration. Thus, the service provided will be safer with the precautions taken in advance.”
Remote healthcare system “Telemedicine” will be launched first for the elderly
Emphasizing that they have started to increase the number of Healthy Aging Centers, where the elderly will be entrusted to a physician responsible for them, Koca said that the system currently targets those over the age of 80, but it is aimed to provide services to those over the age of 65 in the future.
Koca explained that in these centers where physicians, nurses, medical secretaries and technicians work, patients will be visited at their homes, and certain requirements such as reports and prescriptions will be resolved remotely through the online system “Telemedicine” without the need for them to visit the hospital.
Minister Koca said, “We want to put the Telemedicine system into use in both family medicine and outpatient clinics in hospitals. The system will first start in the Healthy Aging Centers.”
“Our problems partially continue in some branches regarding MHRS appointments”
Emphasizing that new applications have been launched in order to prevent appointment problems in the Central Physician Appointment System (MHRS) and that these have yielded results to a certain extent, Minister Koca gave the following information:
“We partially continue to have problems with MHRS appointments, especially in some branches. We are experiencing problems in branches such as dermatology, plastic surgery, ophthalmology, Ear Nose and Throat (ENT). We are trying to solve this by providing after-hours practices or assigning extra physicians when necessary.”
Prosthetic needs of earthquake victims
In this context, Koca pointed out that the most appropriate prosthetic applications are provided for patients, including imported ones, without considering any cost factor and said:
“In this regard, our Ministry has determined a total of 19 centers in earthquake zones, Istanbul and Ankara where the most suitable prosthesis is provided for our patient. It is set out in a Presidential Decree that there is no financial restriction for such productions.
So far, 157 prostheses have been applied, and almost 600 prostheses will be applied. Prosthesis is an approach that includes both rehabilitation and healing processes. For this reason, centers need to be strong in terms of rehabilitation and physical therapy. Therefore, these centers are strengthened and monitored closely.”
“We hold city meetings to see and solve health problems on site.”
Minister Koca also mentioned that they have been holding “city meetings” all over Türkiye for a while and said, “With these visits, we aim to see our health problems on site, evaluate the problems together with our healthcare professionals, and solve any problems on the spot.”