Turkish pharmacists stop providing drugs to Syrian refugees

Meltem Özgenç ANKARA

A total of 5,000 pharmacies in Istanbul have made a joint decision to not provide medicine to Syrian refugees, claiming the state is not meeting the expenses of the medicine.

Nurten Saydan, the president of the Pharmacists’ Federation of Employers’ Organization (TEİS), said they have agreed as pharmacists in Istanbul.

Saydan said the state had promised the pharmacies it would meet the costs of the medicine provided to Syrian refugees. The pharmacists were expected payments of 150,000 Turkish Liras from the state for the Syrian refugees’ prescriptions.

“Our pharmacists have not gotten payment of the medicine they have provided to Syrian refugees for around 11 months now. They have decided to stop giving drugs to Syrians from now on. [The Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate] AFAD has to accelerate the control of the prescriptions and enable the payments of the delayed expenses. We demand the covering of our pharmacists’ problem,” Saydan said.

Turkey hosts around 1.7 million Syrian refugees and although most have spread to cities across Turkey, hundreds of thousands live in refugee camps. However, they are not officially considered refugees by Turkish law.