Health Minister Kemal Memişoğlu's remarks on natural birth debates and earthquakes: He made a comparison between birth and smoking

Responding to questions during a program he attended on Habertürk TV, Health Minister Kemal Memişoğlu made assessments regarding the current agenda.

Key highlights from Minister Memişoğlu's statements are as follows:

First and foremost, I wish all our citizens and Istanbul a speedy recovery. I was in Ankara during the earthquake. The earthquake happened at that moment, and our President told us to move to Istanbul immediately. From that moment on, we set off for Istanbul and arrived at AFAD. The Governor's Office and 24 service institutions had gathered there.

Our deputy mayor and the fire department were there. We also gathered during the previous 5.8 earthquake. Whoever the metropolitan mayor or their deputy was, they had come. Our metropolitan deputy mayor was at all the meetings. They were at the table when the statement was being made. They are also a very positive colleague. We gathered when our deputy mayor arrived.

Our deputy mayor was with us all day. We were together all day. They were sitting at the table with our governor. We should not politicize the earthquake. It shouldn't be 'you did this, I did that'; we must do it together. Everyone should ask themselves during an earthquake, 'what did I do, what should we do?' We need to prepare for the earthquake and fight it together before it happens.

Currently, our hospitals in the earthquake zone are numerically much higher than they were before the earthquake. However, we lost 52 thousand lives. Therefore, I am saying this for Istanbul; we need to be prepared for a possible major earthquake in terms of our mindset.

"THE FIRST 12 HOURS ARE VERY CRITICAL"

We will hold a drill this Saturday regarding the Istanbul earthquake. We had previously held a drill in and around Çam Sakura. We said that preparation for an earthquake cannot be just on paper. Preparation for an earthquake happens with mentality. Especially after the 5.8 2019 Istanbul earthquake, many meetings were held under the chairmanship of our Vice Presidency. Hundreds of meetings were held. The 2019 earthquake taught us a lot. We worked on what we needed to do on the health side. Istanbul provided great support in terms of health during the February 6 earthquake. Those preparations were very useful. We had gone to the field as the Ministry of Health and the Istanbul Provincial Directorate. Our field hospital and truck were set up there in 24 hours. What we mainly did was this; we said, 'in an earthquake, people in the health system should not act by command but automatically, they should know what to do.' Because the first 12 hours in an earthquake are very critical. We said that when an earthquake happens, all ambulances should go out without waiting for instructions. Helicopters should take off automatically. Let them stay, I will give them instructions in the air.

WHAT IS THE STATUS OF PREPARATION FOR EARTHQUAKES?

We established reference hospitals. These are our large hospitals with isolators. We said that local hospitals should be able to provide health services for that region on their own within 0-12 hours in terms of coordination with all hospitals and health organizations in that region. We also matched all regions with these hospitals.

These are also logistics centers. We kept materials in their parking lots that could last for 72 hours. These hospitals became the logistics center of that area. All of them have helipads. We matched all hospitals in Istanbul with regions and hospitals in Anatolia. Istanbul can support all of Turkey, but all of Turkey needs to support Istanbul in an organized manner.

Each city will know which area it will go to. We matched Kartal and Başıbüyük with Bilkent City Hospital. We matched them by looking at population and bed capacity. We even matched pharmacies. We defined which pharmacy a pharmacy in Ankara or Diyarbakır is matched with in the Kadıköy or Beşiktaş region. We also programmed where they will move to and how they will do it by sea and air so that they can arrive.

"WE WORKED VERY DETAILED"

We said let's make a disaster plan according to society in health. In today's drill, 16 provinces will come from the Tuzla and Kadıköy region on Saturday. Which hospital they will go to, how they will go. Because they need to know the hospital. A person coming from Konya does not know the hospital here. We worked very detailed. We made the personnel's assembly areas in places close to those hospitals for their families. First, you save your own life, then you think about your loved ones. We made protocols with the schools closest to the hospitals for the personnel coming from outside. We told the nearest police station, 'Go to this hospital and provide security' the moment an earthquake happens. We are doing this together with AFAD. We have no problems in planning, we need to explain this to people. An earthquake is such a thing that we need to memorize how to do it even in the zero second. The health organization needs to know this in a way that it automates itself on this issue. If you succeed in most of this in 12 hours.

"EVERYONE NEEDS TO ASK"

We planned our logistics more by air and sea, not by road. We also planned which pier 10 hospitals would dock at in terms of logistics. I was pleased to see that the transportation of people by sea was also planned. There are 5 airports in Istanbul. There are 2 civil airports. These 10 hospitals have helipads. We are building a 4 thousand-bed city hospital in Sancaktepe. There is also an airport there where small planes can take off and land. This is a system where we plan where people will go by planning certain centers on the Kocaeli and Tekirdağ side regarding those coming by land. There were no direct injuries from the earthquake. There were spinal and orthopedic injuries related to bumping and jumping. They were also caused by panic. There were about 236 people who hit their feet while running away. Currently, 41 people remain. Every citizen living in Istanbul needs to ask the question, 'what will I do if an earthquake happens?'

"WE OFFERED THE BEST SERVICE"

A 1-year-old child walks. The brain's cortex is not automatic. The child walks by thinking. Do you think about how to take a step while walking? It is routine for you now. Our earthquake preparation needs to become routine, it needs to be automatic. The world is currently admiring the construction and physical structures in the February 6 earthquake. However, you cannot bring back the life that is lost. Health workers were excellent in that earthquake. We became an example to the world in the February 6 earthquake. The WHO has come and recorded it in the literature. We offered the world's best health service both in the earthquake and in Covid. We passed both difficult tests.

"NATURAL IS NORMAL BIRTH" BANNER

We are the Ministry of Health, not the ministry of disease. We are obliged and tasked with explaining what is healthy. I am a ministry tasked with teaching society what is beneficial regarding health and making warnings.

I am also fighting against smoking. When I say smoking is harmful to health, am I interfering with the lives of smokers, or when I say lose weight, am I interfering with people's freedom? Birth is a miracle.

It is truly physiological and a miracle. The baby staying in the womb, being fed, entering that path, and coming out when the time comes after maturing with everything while exiting that path is what we call physiological, or normal birth in common parlance. The same team, Sivasspor, had a banner about breast cancer 2 years ago. I am pleased with this debate. We do not implement policies that will forcibly interfere with the life of any woman, any lady, or any child. Even thinking about this is pathological thinking. Everyone is free in their life within the framework of the law. I am obliged to say what is right, what is healthy, and to make plans and produce policies regarding this. We are not insulting anyone there.

Some of our friends who act with other perceptions or other policies with a logic that will truly harm this country are perhaps fueling it. Natural is normal birth. When necessary, when it is medically mandatory, of course, surgery will be performed. The average cesarean section rate in the world is 15 percent. Only 1 or 2 out of 10 births are surgeries. In our country, 6.1 out of 10 births are by cesarean section.

A child born by cesarean section may not be sufficiently developed medically in terms of lungs, and their contact with their mother may be insufficient. We started a campaign under the auspices of our esteemed lady Emine Erdoğan called the natural birth action plan in October 2024. We have completed 6 of our 10 action plans. We increased the effectiveness of midwives and changed their legislation. We are having mother schools built in all hospitals. The mother's pregnancy process is a difficult process. We need to support the mother. We also supported the midwives working in delivery rooms financially. We are making a mobile application called Motherhood Journey with an internet application for all the information that mothers want to learn during the motherhood process, starting from pregnancy until the child is 2 years old.

"WE ARE NOT INTERFERING WITH ANYONE'S PRIVATE LIFE"

We have midwife schools in our health life centers. There are 286 currently. We will build 100 more. From physical therapy to dentistry. Everyone from dietitians to child development specialists works there. Everything is done for free, including cancer screening. Perhaps our mistake is that we could not fully explain it to society. Unfortunately, cesarean section is more common in our private hospitals. Over 61 percent. It is lower in the state. In the 30 percent band. We have a very good private sector in Turkey, world-class. Our live birth rate number is falling. We are not interfering with anyone's private life. I am saying clearly that natural birth is the healthy one for both the baby and the mother.

News Source: 12punto