I am of the opinion that the demonstrations could have been more comprehensive. The arbitrary decisions of the Ministry of Health in the recent period have harmed the private hospitals in particular.

I had not participated in a protest in years until the other day when I joined the Many Voices, One Heart demonstration held in Ankara by the health personnel. The weather was quite good on Sunday. It was a long walk for me. I saw many friends I had not seen in a long time. I had a lot of fun. I would like to thank to Mr. Recep Akdağ, Minister of Health, for giving me this opportunity. Today let me share with you my impressions about the day of protest.

If you were to ask me what issue raised at the protest was of the greatest interest to me, I would say the solidarity of the health personnel. There actually was a single heart. Under normal conditions, for instance, practitioners would stand separately from the rest of the crowd and would divide into many sub-groups. This is because they are used to working alone with a small team. It is not easy for them to develop a collective attitude. Such is occupational deformation. But yesterday, all of them, from private practitioners to public personnel and academics, stood up together.

A total of 150 associations and unions participated in the demonstration. I do not know the total number of associations and unions in the health field in Turkey, but there were many at the demonstration. What is more, even some that I thought would have refrained from protesting the government were there. No one seemed to be afraid of anything. In fact, they were quite joyful. They seemed to be happy about what they were doing. In this context, if the Honorable Prime Minister of Turkey is wondering about the situation of the health personnel in Turkey, let me say: "The crowd has started to play, Honorable Erdoğan." It seems like they will not regard any decision of the government from now on.

At this point I sincerely would like to congratulate Mr. Recep Akdağ, who successfully gathered in the same place people marching to different drummers.  The Honorable Minister of Health should be congratulated for his contributions to the solidarity among the health personnel. Every single person I chatted with complained about contradictory arrangements by the Ministry of Health. I do not know how good Mr. Akdağ is as a doctor, but the solidarity on the streets was evidence of his failure as an administrator. Making crowds jump simultaneously signifies bad administration if nothing else. "Haven't you heard about governance, for God's sake?" Let this be the first point to state.

The second point: I am of the opinion that if the organizing committee of the meeting could have had a more comprehensive perspective, I am sure that the owners of private hospitals would have been represented by their own associations and unions at the protests. I believe that the arbitrary decisions of the Ministry of Health in the recent period have harmed the private hospitals in particular. In this period predictability, a key precondition for private sector investments, evaporated in the field of health. The development of the private health sector has been hindered via discretionary decisions by the state. The Ministry has started to show contradictory behavior towards private enterprise owners. Therefore, a greater number of associations and unions could have been there at the protests.

Let me add a third point for those naive people who ask,"has he not done a single good?" Uncharted waters definitely bring harm. Each intervention in the functioning of a system leads to undesired outcomes along with the desired ones. A successful intervention is one which brings more desired outcomes than undesired ones. Unfortunately, the recent steps taken by the Ministry of Health have had more undesired outcomes than desired ones and it seems the gap will widen in the future. My favorite poster at the meetings was, "Watch the magnificent collapse, not the Magnificent Century (A Turkish TV series about the era of the Ottoman Sultan Sulaiman)." It was the magnificent century that brought the magnificent collapse, wasn't it?

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 15.03.2011