Precautions and oversight…

In my final column of 2025, I mentioned the subdural hemorrhage—hematoma—I had experienced. During my recovery period following surgery at the Florence Nightingale Istanbul - Çağlayan Hospital, I was frequently taken down by elevator for CT scans. They were monitoring how my post-operative condition was progressing. Even though I felt fine, the nurses accompanying me always brought an emergency intervention kit with them. Once, I asked, "Why do you bring this with you?" The nurse replied, "We are required to bring it in case an emergency arises in the elevator. It contains intubation equipment and other first-aid supplies." As I look back on my 50 years in medicine, I remembered two incidents I experienced that left a lasting impression on me. I wanted to share them with you. 

I was in my second or third year of residency in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Ege University Faculty of Medicine. Normal deliveries in the maternity clinic were performed in the delivery room located on the first floor. If a problem arose during labor, the pregnant woman was taken by elevator to the second floor, where the second obstetrics ward and the operating room were located, for a cesarean section. During a difficult labor, when a serious situation regarding the baby arose, the specialist physician on duty that day (the chief resident) asked me to take the pregnant woman to the operating room on the floor above. We reached the second floor, but the elevator door would not open. Outside, the patient's relatives were waiting, and inside the elevator, the pregnant woman was screaming. I was forcing the door, but it was impossible to open. We could not reach the technical service. More than an hour had passed. No one came. The pregnant woman let out a violent scream. Upon examination, I realized the baby was being born. And the baby was born. We didn't even have scissors with us to cut the umbilical cord. But the patient, who was supposed to have a cesarean section, ended up delivering a healthy baby through a normal birth. We had not taken the necessary precautions, but the outcome was good for both the patient and us; fortunately, the result was not negative. 

The second incident occurred in the 1990s at the Özel Sağlık Hospital, which was one of the prominent healthcare institutions in İzmir at the time, and it had a tragic outcome. Op. Dr. Tufan Pekin, an Orthopedics and Traumatology Specialist who came in for a surgery in the morning, stopped by the emergency clinic at the entrance with chest pain. The physician on duty examined our colleague and, suspecting a heart attack, told him to go up to the angiography room on the second floor of the hospital. While waiting for the elevator and inside the elevator, his chest pain intensified. Because the person accompanying the patient had not brought emergency intervention equipment, they could not intervene in the elevator, and lacking sufficient experience, there was nothing they could do. By the time the elevator reached the designated floor, the patient had been lost. We lost a young physician colleague. If an experienced or trained healthcare worker or nurse had been accompanying him, if he had been sent on a stretcher, and if emergency intervention equipment had been available, a young patient might not have been lost.

In our country, the lack of oversight and lack of precautions are so widespread in every field that staying alive and healthy is a matter of luck. 

We lost 78 of our citizens in the fire at the Bolu Kartalkaya Grand Kaya Hotel, and 133 people were injured.

The female workers, most of whom were women, who lost their lives in the fire at the perfume factory in Dilovası, Kocaeli, have unfortunately already begun to be forgotten.

We have begun to hear and see similar incidents frequently. Likewise, we watched with sadness what happened to the Böcek family in Istanbul. We are losing many of our citizens because necessary precautions are not taken and regular checks and inspections are not carried out. Unfortunately, the lack of precautions and lack of oversight continue unabated; they are even treated as "fate," as if they were everyday, ordinary events for our country. 

In our Republic, which has a history of more than a hundred years, sufficient oversight and precautions still cannot be taken, and our culture of foresight and inspection in the face of negative events fails to develop. We observe with regret that this is neither reflected in the laws nor developed as a lifestyle. I congratulate Florence Nightingale Hospital for the precautions they have taken and their good management. I congratulate them for their attentive service in emergency medicine and preventive health services, in addition to restoring patients to health. Wishing for an increase in the number of such institutions, I wish you a healthy year.