Social Utility by Syrian Temporary Refugees from Family Physicians

Abstract

Turkey is a country that has been exposed to an intense Syrian influx since 2011. Today, according to official figures, approximately four million Syrians live in Turkey. Syrians who are accepted as temporary refugees can live wherever they want in Turkey. This situation allowed them not to be evenly distributed with the population and resources in 81 provinces, but to accumulate in a small number of provinces. Syrian caused serious problems in metropolitan areas and border cities where they are concentrated. Chief among these problems is the insufficiency of the resources created for the urban population due to the additional pressure caused by the Syrian population. For example, the number of Syrians living in Kilis today is more than the number of Turks. Since the distribution of resources is made according to the Turkish population, additional Syrian population’s pressure naturally leads to the need for additional resources. Primary healthcare service is the first step and the most widespread service provider in public health service delivery. Primary healthcare service is based on family medicine. The distribution of family physicians, on the other hand, constitutes the most evenly distributed public health personnel according to the population numbers of provinces, districts, and neighborhoods. However, the uneven distribution of the additional population coming from Syria between the provinces led to a sharp deterioration in the distribution of family physicians among the provinces. In this study, using the Atkinson inequality index, the social benefit provided by the family physicians of the two population segments according to the Turkish and Syrian populations in the provinces was calculated and compared. The same application procedure was performed for the other physician entity for comparison. The findings revealed that the social benefit provided by family physicians remained disproportionately low for Syrians.