Uncontrolled population flow into the country is one of the most pressing issues for North Cyprus, former Minister of Health and CTP Nicosia Deputy Filiz Besim said, Yeniduzen reports.
In an interview with Dr. Besim, the subjects of state planning, health and education were discussed.
Dr. Besim that there appears to be no state planning based on knowing and controlling population numbers to combat problems in the health and education sectors. She also said that President Tatar was out of touch with the experiences of ordinary citizens.
Reacting to statements made by President Ersin Tatar and the measures he has taken, Dr. Besim said, “Unfortunately, the President is disconnected from the public at the moment, as if he lives in another world in a way that the public cannot understand. This is a serious danger. Sometimes we describe it as funny, but actually it is not funny, it is tragic“.
Asked to list the top three issues facing the country, Dr. Besim said the following:
“One of the important problems is uncontrolled population flow.
“According to the Republican Turkish Party, one of the most important problems right now is the uncontrolled population flow. Unfortunately, not knowing the population clearly, not being able to follow the incoming population and making proper planning has paralyzed the institutions that serve the population in the country. Health is experiencing great difficulties in this regard and we cannot keep up. We say we will build hospitals, but we cannot. It is not clear how much of what we do will reach this dense population.
“Our schools are experiencing serious infrastructure problems in education. It is very clear that the existing ones cannot actually be enough for this population. The clearest indicator of this is prison. We increased the prison capacity of 300 people to 650 people, but there are currently 1000 people in the prison. Are we going to build two or three more prisons, what are we going to do? This should give us serious alarm. In fact, serious planning should be made regarding the population problem, which is the most important issue”.
Access to Healthcare and Medicines
“Health problems are a serious problem. People could not find medicine or reach a doctor for almost two years. This is exactly the reason for the recent prescription fraud. When we look at the roots, the main issue is the failure to plan the population and the failure to control the incoming population. While we said we would provide healthcare to everyone, we actually came to a point where we could not make the investments and plans we needed to make in health. Uncontrolled population and infrastructure problems that cannot be solved in time also contribute to the chaos in education”.
She emphasised that: “The main problem is population planning. Governments must create policies and plan the incoming population in line with the future of the country, taking into account the needs”.