The nurse who became the center of Turkey's agenda speaks out: Doubled the outrage

Nurse Hazel Dırık Bağrıyanık, who recently turned herself in to the police station in the Dinar district of Afyonkarahisar, is accused of causing Deniz Esin Bozoklar, who was allegedly abused at 5 days old in Kahramanmaraş, to suffer permanent physical and mental disabilities.

Bağrıyanık, who was arrested and sent to prison, attended the hearing at the Kahramanmaraş 10th Criminal Court of First Instance via the SEGBİS video conferencing system following her detention.

During the hearing, security camera footage presented by the judge showed the nurse attempting to hit the baby with a blood collection tube, pulling the baby's hair with her fingernails, and lifting the baby by its skin.

In her defense to the court, the accused nurse stated the following:

“I needed to draw the victim's blood; the procedure I performed was in accordance with protocol. Because we could not establish intravenous access, we were drawing blood this way using the drip method. I acted this way to position the baby. I did not intend to hit the baby with the blood tube; I only touched her.''

''Because I saw plaster and cotton from the bed pad on the victim's head, I touched the victim's hair to clean it; I had no intention of causing harm. These were warnings I made to draw the victim's blood, to position her, and to keep the patient's functional warning systems alert; I had no other purpose.”

The defendant's statements further intensified the reaction on social media and within the public. Bağrıyanık, who is reported in the footage to have struck the baby's head multiple times and to have pulled her leg and squeezed her abdominal area, expressed regret regarding the events and added:

“I am regretful; I did it in a moment of negligence and reflex. I never did it with the intention of causing harm. There was absolutely no intention to squeeze; because the scale was slippery and the sides were open, there was a risk of the patient falling, and it was an action I took to correct her position. Because there was an intestinal issue in the abdominal area and she was defecating externally, I had to squeeze that area and close it like a tampon due to the risk of infection; I did it because that area needed to remain closed. Because the patient had a congenital feeding problem, she had undergone surgery by a pediatric surgeon to have her intestines opened externally.”