False diagnoses presented to parents
“What exactly happened during those days in intensive care? Why did the disciplinary commission finally close the case? Did the fact that a minister was involved contribute to blurring responsibilities? ” Sibel Kösal, 41, who lost a child in 2017 in one of the hospitals involved in this network, continues to wonder. Since the media coverage of the case, this mother has lost sleep, questions surrounding the circumstances of the death of his granddaughter became an obsession.
Seven years ago, this housewife was transferred to the Avcilar private hospital (district on the European side of Istanbul, Editor’s note) for a cesarean delivery which promised to be without complications. “I had been very careful during the pregnancy, all the follow-ups had been done, the baby was in great shape“, she remembers.
The hours that followed would turn into a nightmare. While she was expecting her newborn, a little girl named Zeynep, the medical team informed her that the child had been transferred to the intensive care unit. The words of the caregivers are intended to be reassuring, but the hours of waiting will quickly become unbearable. “We ended up receiving a phone call from management. My husband was summoned and when he returned, he told me that our little girl had died from a lung infection.“, relates Sibel, in a feverish voice.
With the complicity of the 112 emergency service operators, doctors presented false diagnoses to families in distress to justify the transfer of newborns to neonatal units in private hospitals that they rented. Keeping children in intensive care earned this criminal ring 8,000 Turkish liras per day (or around 216 euros), reports the CNN Türk news channel. The testimonies highlight practices solely oriented towards financial gain, without the slightest consideration for the Hippocratic Oath.
“No one should die like that. We’ve never seen that before, except in the movies”
Other similar networks?
The existence of this network was denounced to the authorities in a detailed message posted on the government interface CIMER (a government site on which citizens can directly ask questions or denounce reprehensible acts), on March 27, 2023, justifying the triggering of an investigation. The Ministry of Health Inspection report has since listed forty-seven accused, of whom twenty-two have been arrested. In the 1,400-page indictment dated October 17, 2024, the protagonists of the case – doctors Fırat Sari and İlker Gönen – are accused of “negligent manslaughter”, “insider trading”, “creation of a criminal organization” and “falsification of official documents”. They face up to 177 years and 6 months to 582 years and 9 months of imprisonment.
The affair of the “newborn gang” has barely been revealed, other files resurface. On the daily news channel Spokesmanjournalist Fatih Ergin thus affirmed that a similar network systematized – without medical reasons – transfers to dialysis units for elderly patients.
Professional health organizations point the finger at the excessive privatization of the health sector in recent years. “For us, these crimes are not only administrative and legal“, wrote the Istanbul Chamber of Physicians in a press release published in mid-October. “This is the consequence of the transformation of health establishments into commercial companies, of patients into customers, and of the vision of health as a commodity.” The first hearing of the trial will be held on November 18.
