Details of corona-infected Turkish citizen transported from Sweden

Mohammed Abdul Ghaffar

The Covid-19 corona virus has spread quickly and widely in Turkey, revealing the poor conditions of the country’s healthcare system and the great confusion of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) regime headed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. To break this impasse, Erdogan has used his media arms to promote the process of transferring a Turkish citizen from Sweden to receive corona treatment.

Media hospitality

Two girls, Laila and Samira, posted a video on social media showing pictures of their father, Amor Allah Golushkin, who is infected with the corona virus, and they appealed to the Turkish authorities to transfer their father, who holds Turkish citizenship, after hospitals in Stockholm refused to treat him.

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca grabbed onto the thread quickly, saying that Erdogan is following the matter himself and conveyed his sympathy to the two girls. “Our private plane took off from Sweden in the morning, and it will soon arrive in Ankara. Rest assured, my dear Laila, we have treated 25,000 infected people, and God willing your father will also recover from this virus,” the minister said on Twitter.

After that, pro-Turkish media outlets began promoting this step. The Anadolu Agency reported that Turkey had provided a private plane to transport one of its citizen infected with the corona virus from Sweden.

Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera reported that “Turkey is sending an ambulance to bring a citizen that Sweden has refused to treat.”

Truth?

To uncover the truth, the incident must be traced back to the beginning, where Laila Golushkin wrote on her Facebook account prior to publishing the video of her father that “embassy officials asked the family for $26,000 to let my father take an ambulance to receive treatment in Turkey,” which explains why she posted the video and requested the help of officials in Ankara, according to Turkish newspaper Zaman.

Meanwhile, the Swedish Public Health Council posted an official statement on Twitter on April 26, saying that it seeks to heal all those infected and objecting to claim they rejected treating someone, as everyone is equal when it comes to receiving the country’s healthcare.

The statement pointed out that the general rule in Sweden is to provide for cases requiring clinical care in hospitals according to a medical evaluation, which was not available in the case of the Turkish citizen, so his quarantine was carried out at home in accordance with the protocols followed in such cases.

As for the plane in which the patient was transferred, it belongs to Redstar Aviation, which the Qatari company Gulf Helicopters owns 49% of its shares. The company had succeeded in December 2017 to obtain the privilege of providing ambulance planes for four years to the General Directorate of Emergency Health Services, which in turn is affiliated with the Turkish Ministry of Health.

The Qatari company succeeded in obtaining the tender at a value of 126.9 million Turkish liras ($181 million), and the contract was signed on February 19, 2018. This has brought financial gains to the Qatari state-owned company Gulf Helcopters, which has shares in the Qatar Central Bank and is 30% owned by Qatar Petroleum.

The Turkish health minister announced in early May that his country had reached a peak of the corona virus outbreak, as the cases amounted to 122,000. This was about two weeks after Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu submitted his resignation, which was rejected by Erdogan.