Foreign assistant doctors are in trouble

Melike Sahin/Istanbul

Foreign assistant doctors whose salaries are half the minimum wage are in trouble.

Foreign national assistant doctors receive a salary of 4 thousand 300 TL. This amount is almost half of the announced minimum wage.

TurkeyEhsan Ganbari, one of hundreds of foreign national assistant doctors working in Turkey, said, “We receive an average of 4 times lower salary than our Turkish colleagues with whom we share the same workload. I am looking for a job abroad. It doesn’t matter what the job is, I just want to make a living,” he told about his financial difficulties.

A doctor Ganbari said that they took all the responsibilities, but they could not earn enough salary, and said, “The average rent for a livable house is around 4 thousand TL. However, when you calculate the bills, unfortunately, foreign national assistant doctors try to earn their living by doing additional work outside their own branches. Foreign national assistant doctors deserve at least a higher fixed salary and additional payments than the minimum wage,” he called.

REGULATION REQUEST

Foreign national assistant doctors do not have insurance. Ganbari spoke as follows on this issue:

“Foreign resident doctors who do not have insurance can eventually experience serious health problems and pay high fees even in their own hospitals. We are legally defined as students. We cannot be civil servants because we are not citizens. When you become a student, both the SGK issue and the paid fees or additional payments are all a problem. If possible, a new status and legal regulation should come to us.”

Foreign students enter the medical faculty and the medical specialization exam with the quota allocated to them.

There are approximately 2,500 foreign national assistant doctors in Turkey.