Doctors quit Şemdinli hospital over security concerns

A total of nine doctors have stepped down from their posts in the state-owned Şemdinli hospital in Turkey's southeast for security concerns amid reports of escalating tension.

Until August, the hospital had employed 50 medical staff including nine specialists, seven nurses and three practitioners . Almost all medics have quit in the last three months, while the number of medical staff has sharply dropped from 50 to 10. Initially, five of nine specialists resigned. The three others quit in the wake of the explosion that targeted the hospital on Thursday.

“Only one general surgeon has stayed in his post. The entire specialist staff including a dentist, pediatrician and an ENT doctor have quit after the attack," said a nurse from the emergency service.

“We are trying to cope with patients with only two nurses and three practicians. We are only dealing with patients in critical condition," she said. “When any non-critical patient is admitted, the patient is transferred to other hospitals."

The specialist at the hospital's orthopedic services was the first to abandon his position. The medics and nurses in the urology, pediatric, orthopedic and maternity services respectively left the hospital later.

In the last four months, Turkey has stepped up reprisals against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). A ceasefire in the long-running conflict with the armed group broke in July after the separatist group resumed its campaign of violence following the deadly suicide bombing in Suruç, a town near the Syrian border.

Turkey's retaliatory strikes on PKK bases in northern Iraq began on July 23, a day after two police officers were found dead at their home in Şanlıurfa, in the southeast, in an attack which was later claimed by the outlawed organization.

Like Turkey, both the US and EU list the PKK as a terrorist organization. The PKK began a bloody campaign for Kurdish self-rule in the Southeast in the early 1980s. Some 40,000 people, including security forces and civilians, have been killed in the conflict.