CHP deputy: Doctors selling fake medical reports to military personnel

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Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Deniz Yavuzyılmaz has claimed that after military health institutions were brought under the control of the Health Ministry in Turkey, various fraudulent practices helping military personnel receive early retirement benefits or change their military cadre started to take place in these hospitals, daily Sözcü reported on Dec. 3.

Yavuzyılmaz claimed that various doctors started to issue fake medical reports which deem a military staff as unfitting to qualify as a commando or which help a military staff to be qualified as a disabled retiree in exchange for money.

A military staff receives up to 2,600 Turkish Liras in monthly salary, if they earn the right to become a retiree for general physical unfitness and up to 7,000 liras in monthly salary, if they are wounded due to an occupational hazard, Yavuzyılmaz said.

“There is a significant rise in the number of [military] personnel that received these [medical] reports. There is also a rise in the number of Turkish Armed Forces and gendarmerie personnel that earned the right to receive military retirement for psychological disability that occurred due to the job,” the CHP deputy said.

In 2016, in the aftermath of a failed coup attempt, the Turkish government decided to totally dismantle the military medical network of about 900 doctors.

Two weeks after the attempted coup, the 125-year-old Gülhane Military Medical Academy (GATA) in the capital Ankara and 33 other military hospitals in different parts of Turkey were transferred to the jurisdiction of the civilian Health Ministry.

The medical needs of the Turkish Armed Forces are now handled by the civilian medical system.