‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’

Through a child’s eye

This month the topic at my creche has been “health.” We’ve talked a lot about healthy eating, exercise, sleep and hygiene and had the opportunity to invite a doctor into school to talk to the children. “Günaydın, çocuklar,” beamed the doctor. A deathly silence echoed from my normally chatty and exuberant class of 3 and 4-year-olds. Their reaction stunned me. I thought I had fully prepared the kids by role-playing hospitals with the toy medical kit, but here they were gazing in horror at the sight of the white-coated doc, mother of one of the school’s pupils. Sensing the waves of fear emanating from the youngsters, the good doctor removed her white coat to reveal her grey and more casual hospital trousers and top. We both watched in vain for their terror to abate. “OK,” continued the doctor, “let’s try something else.” She produced a bag of plastic hygienic gloves and proceeded to blow one up like a balloon and then to draw a face on the front allowing the “thumb” to act as a nose. “What have I made?” she prompted. Deafening silence. If anyone else had blown up a glove to make a silly face they would have been howling in the aisles and begging for one for themselves. The poor doctor tried English, Turkish and German to this multicultural mixture of kids, but nothing worked. She got off the child-sized chair and joined them on the cushions. They eyed her cautiously and squirmed backward as far as possible.

“OK, how about this?” she suggested, producing what must have been a familiar sight to some children -- a tool to inspect ears. “Has anyone seen one of these before?” No response. “Who would like to try this?” No volunteers were forthcoming, so I bravely stepped forward and demonstrated that the doctor was not about to inflict pain. After this, between us we succeeded in persuading one child to have a go with the stethoscope and another to have his arm bandaged. But we failed to elicit any dialogue between the children and the doctor.

Although I was at a loss to understand the kids’ reaction, the doctor wasn’t at all surprised. “It’s really hard working as a doctor with children in Turkey. Every time children come to see a doctor they are given an injection. So they’re scared of us.”

Parental ‘sense’

Having worked in the creche for four years, I was aware how often these kids were rushed off to hospital every time they sneezed, coughed, had a headache or vomited. I only have to mention in passing, as a parent collects their child at the end of the day, that earlier on their child had said the dreaded words “karnım ağrıyor” (my tummy hurts) and they are whisked off to the nearest hospital. Now I am not a doctor, but both my parents worked in the medical profession, I brought up three kids of my own and taught in the UK for many years. Children regularly get sick, and most of the time a day or two of rest is all they need -- or as I used to say to my kids -- “a hot bath and an early night” -- but not a trip to hospital, injections and copious amounts of medicine. This then was the reason for their fear -- the enemy had invaded the normally safe environment of creche. Add to this a comment made by my Turkish classroom helper. “Parents often use a trip to the doctor as a threat when their child is behaving badly,” she explained. In the UK, I’ve heard parents threatening a trip to the police station in a similar way.

As for me…

In the UK I was registered with a local National Health Service GP (general practitioner), who was always the first port of call if I was ill. If the doctor felt it necessary, he sent me to a specialist, usually working in a hospital. However, it had become increasingly difficult to see a doctor at my local practice in a small town in the north of England. The rules for making an appointment stipulated that I must ring between 8:30 and 10:30 in the morning. This was not easy as I was working and became frustratingly impossible when my phone call coincided with the rest of the sick population. By the time I got through, the next available slot would invariably be several days hence. My own experiences with the Turkish medical profession are thankfully limited, but soon after my arrival in Antalya, I developed a painful ear infection and needed to see a doctor. Here I was able to walk to the nearest hospital (sadly now demolished), fill out a few forms, hand over TL 60 and be seen immediately by an ear, nose and throat specialist. His room was equipped with the latest state-of-the-art gadgets, and he diagnosed the problem and prescribed the correct treatment within a matter of minutes.

My next firsthand taste of the Antalya health profession was when I needed an up-to-date medical examination as part of the process of applying for a work permit. This was a much more nerve-racking experience, despite feeling as fit as a fiddle.  Unlike the English system, where I would have seen just one doctor, I had to see a different person for what seemed like every part of my body. My eyes were tested by a doctor who must have been well into his 80s and looked like he could barely see me, let alone the state of my eyes. My ears, nose and throat were swabbed endlessly. My chest was X-rayed. My stomach was pummeled. I’m not quite sure what they were testing when I was asked to walk in a straight line both forward and backward. Finally, a psychologist asked me if I was thinking about committing suicide! “Only if I have to join another queue,” I thought to myself. When I applied for a Turkish driving license six months later, I had to repeat the whole process again, though this time I had to stump up an (admittedly small) fee for the pleasure.