Under the counter practices in health are dangerous!
Pointing to the promotions made on social media and under the counter health practices in health, Public Health Specialist Prof.Haydar Sur stated that "While social media offers the opportunity to reach the widest audiences in the fastest way, miscommunication or misinformation can cause errors to spread just as quickly.”
Prof. Haydar Sur expressed that "In an environment where they see depriving some children of vaccination and blocking vaccination services as a success, social media can become a dangerous tool in the hands of these people."
Üsküdar University Faculty of Medicine Dean Prof. Haydar Sur drew attention to the false health information spread on social media and the increasing dangers of under the counter health practices.
The promotion of health services is as important as its presentation
Emphasizing that the introduction of health services to the public is as important as the provision of the service, Prof. Haydar Sur stated that "However, while promoting appropriately, revealing everything related to health without distinguishing between right and wrong can lead to great dangers. This situation can lead to the fact that so-called 'semi-intellectuals' acquire such information and pretend to be doctors to others without full knowledge. For this reason, social media promotions are of particular importance. While social media offers the opportunity to reach the widest audiences in the fastest way, it can also cause miscommunication or misinformation errors to spread just as quickly. Therefore, the delivery of the right information through the right communication channels, with the right messages and to the right target audiences should be strictly controlled. If there is a break or defect in any link in this chain, it will be even more difficult to correct this situation and turn the spread of false information back into the truth."
Social media experts can convey the right messages in their hands
Referring to under the counter health practices, Prof. Haydar Sur stated that "Such practices represent a situation that is out of control, and we cannot give any assurance about its quality. In this blurred picture, where we cannot determine exactly by whom and in what way it was made, the questions of where the error was, what kind of mistakes were made, who committed these errors and how to correct the errors remain unanswered. However, when the wide scope and rapid spread power of social media is turned into a medium where the right messages are conveyed in the right way in the hands of experts, it can really benefit public health."
Anti-vaxxers use social media to confuse people
Stating that "As a negative example of this situation, vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccination can be used to confuse people by using social media, to deprive some children of vaccination and to disrupt vaccination services," Prof. Haydar made the following remarks: "In an environment where they see depriving some children of vaccination and blocking vaccination services as a success, social media can become a dangerous tool in the hands of these people."
Traditional and complementary medicine can be controlled when done by professionals
Pointing out that some traditional practices that harm the health of the public more than good may also pose a threat, Prof. Haydar Sur said that "Traditional and complementary medicine can be controlled and strengthen classical medicine services when done by professionals. For this reason, the care in the promotion of these services is of great importance as well as the provision of health services."
Even if the service providers are professionals with diplomas, it is under the counter...
Emphasizing that in the professional and systematic organization and delivery of health services, all stages such as planning the service, allocating resources, training professionals, organizing, and opening service institutions, introducing these services to the public and responding to the demand with services must be taken under control, Prof. Haydar Sur continued his remarks as follows:
"Monitoring the health of those we serve, providing services to those who need services when they cannot reach us, and recording these services in the health statistics system are also part of this process. Services that are not provided in this way are considered to be under the counter, even if the service providers are professionals with diplomas. In any case, all of the services provided by people without a degree must be considered as under the counter.”
"We cannot call the services provided by certified people under the counter"
Prof. Haydar Sur also explained what he meant by 'professional' and ‘having a diploma’ as follows:
"I would like to draw attention to this: depending on the situation and opportunities of the countries, sometimes in cases where there are no or insufficient diplomas, people who can meet the needs with accelerated courses are trained, certified and driven to the service area. In this case, even if they do not have a diploma, the services provided by people who have been trained and certified in a certain format are also controlled. We cannot call such services under the counter."
It can paralyze under the counter
Prof. Sure stated that "For example, in the first years of the Republic, when the number of midwives in our country was very low, sane and literate primary school graduate women in the neighborhoods were trained by obstetricians and were authorized as neighborhood midwives and village midwives.” Prof. Sure concluded his remarks as follows: "These people provided great service at that time. They made a great contribution to the reduction of maternal mortality and infant mortality at a time when maternal mortality reached very high figures of almost two hundred thousand per thousand. We cannot call such services under the counter. However, we can call the services provided by uncontrolled people who paralyze people by saying that they are providing certain services without fully understanding what is happening."
Üsküdar News Agency (ÜNA)