Paper short abstract:

This talk investigates the global and local organizations' perspectives and activities to overcome the health problems of Syrian immigrants in Istanbul, Turkey. It explores how they address the challenges and discriminations that these immigrants experience in their social and medical interactions.

Paper long abstract:

There are currently around 2.5 million Syrian Immigrants in Turkey, which generate a major health problem. Escaping from the war, many of them suffer from war wounds, PTSD, infectious diseases, which particularly affect the children, who are in need of urgent health care. One-third of them live in the camps, which many of them consider "open-air prisons", and the others prefer to live in the major cities, such as Istanbul, where they have social networks and employment opportunities. Although the living and health conditions of Syrian immigrants vary considerably depending on their socio-economic background, the lay people and medical staff often generalize and label them as a source of a new and major global health problem, since they started to "spread previously eradicated infectious diseases, such as TB and Polio, in Turkey". Based on two year-fieldwork, consisted of interviews with Syrian Immigrants and Global and local organizations' medical and social workers who treat them, this talk investigates the global and local organizations' perspectives and activities to overcome the health problems of Syrian immigrants in Istanbul, Turkey. It explores how they address the challenges and discriminations that these immigrants experience in their social and medical interactions. The talk develops a critical approach on the policies of Global, national and local organization in dealing with the Syrian immigrants' health problems, relating them to the conceptual transition of health care, from a basic human right to an individual responsibility where people should do their best to maintain their health.