Politicians, academics and medical professionals attend events to commemorate Turkish medical day
The meeting was chaired by Enfield North MP Nick de Bois (centre)
Cavid Hamidov spoke about the Khojaly massacre
HEALTH DAY, an annual celebration in Turkey of medicine and the medical profession, was marked in Britain with a series of events.
Organised by the Union of Turkish Healthcare Professionals in Britain (ITSEB), they included a photography exhibition on the Çanakkale naval battles during the First World War and a conference in parliament with guests from Britain, Turkey and Germany.
Opening the meeting, ITSEB chairman Ali Demirbağ said their events over the last two years had raised awareness of Health Day and issues that affect the medical community.
He continued: “ITSEB has considered a wide field of topics from developments in the world of medicine to the traumatic results of war. This has helped us play a awareness-raising role warning politicians and decision-makers.
“In the coming weeks, we will announce the results of a study into medical oversights caused by GP and the handling of complaints by patients who believe they have been wronged.”
David Burrowes receiving a plaque from a Malatya delegation
The conference, which was chaired by Nick de Bois, the Enfield North MP, lasted for nearly four hours and covered such matters as breast cancer, plastic surgery, gynaecology and kidney transplants. Turkish medical experts making presentations included academics Yaşar Bayındır, Ramazan Kutlu, Burak Işık and Ender Gedik from the Malatya Inonu University Kidney Transplanet Institute; Kubilay Ertan, from the Turkish-German Gynaecology Association; Mahmut Doğramacı; plastic surgeon Navid Jallali and Naim Kadoğlu, an expert in breast cancer.
A meal held to follow the event was also attended by David Burrowes, the MP for Enfield Southgate, as well as Emirhan Yorulmazlar, Turkey’s consul-general in London, and Nilüfer Kol, director of the Yunus Emre Cultural Centre.
Speaking at the meal, Mr Burrowes said they had been working to ease visa conditions for Turkish doctors and medical professionals wanting to visit the UK.
“It is disappointing that some doctors from Turkey and experts from Iraq were unable to attend because they were not granted visas,” he said.
He added that it was possible that on a future visit to Turkey, David Cameron could raise the possibility of working with organisations like ITSEB to relax its visa policy in certain areas.
Also speaking at the meal was 14-year-old Azerbaijani Cavid Hamidov, who spoke of the 22nd anniversary of the Khojaly massacre, when hundreds of ethnic Azerbaijani civilians were killed by Armenian and CIS armed forces over two days during the Nagorno-Karabakh war of 1992.
Cavid said Khojaly represented an unforgettable tragedy and thanked ITSEB for raising awareness of the incident as part of the “war” theme in its Health Day publications.