Field pharmacies, where nearly 4,500 volunteer pharmacists have been serving since the first day of the February earthquakes, are shutting down because they cannot shoulder the financial burden of their activities.

Until recently, field pharmacies have received medical support from pharmacists who supplied medicaments from their own stocks and donations from the private sector and individuals.

In the following period, the Minister of Health, Fahrettin Koca, presented the volunteer work by pharmacists as a service provided by his ministry. In March, pharmacists who worked voluntarily in the field revealed to the press and the public that they had paid the Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay) for the tents they used as field pharmacies, adding that they did not receive any support from the ministry.

The Ministry removed the examination fee and the patient share so that the people living in the earthquake zones could benefit from health services without paying any fee, but it did not provide direct medical support to the field pharmacies. Pharmacists maintained field pharmacies with the help of pharmacists who supplied medicine from their own stocks and donations from the private sector and individuals.

While some of the pharmacists working in the affected areas decided to withdraw from the field following the reopening of the pharmacies damaged by the earthquakes, others decided to withdraw because they cannot shoulder the financial burden of their activities without constant support from the ministry.

44 pharmacists lost their lives, and more than 1,200 pharmacies became inoperative after the two major earthquakes that hit 11 provinces on February 6.

In the first days of the earthquake, pharmacists constituted the most organized group of rescuers who arrived in the region in the fastest way. Only four days after the earthquakes, the Istanbul Chamber of Pharmacists provided 10 million worth of medicines and medical supplies to the earthquake zone, and 26 field pharmacies were established in 10 provinces on February 27, only three weeks after the devastating earthquakes.

The volunteer pharmacists and medicine donations significantly helped survivors’ access to medicine in the earthquake zone.