Turkey's pharmacies no longer to distribute free masks to public servants
Turkey's pharmacies will no longer distribute free masks to public servants or to anyone insured by social security, as governor's offices will be taking over the task. The regulation comes in an attempt to alleviate the workload of pharmacists who have distributed nearly 100,000,000 masks during the COVID-19 outbreak in Turkey.
Hacı Bişkin / DUVAR
Istanbul Chamber of Pharmacists announced that pharmacies in Turkey would no longer distribute free masks to public servants or to anyone who's insured by social security.
Turkey's Health Ministry has been sending citizens text messages with unique codes, which they then use to acquire free masks at pharmacies.
But this system has been creating extra workload for pharmacists, which is why governor's offices will now be tasked with distributing surgical masks to public servants in their districts.
"This regulation aims to facilitate the work of pharmacies and to remove the increased workload of pharmacies," Turkish Pharmacists' Union Chair Erdoğan Çolak noted.
Meanwhile, workers in private businesses will be tasked with urging their boss to collect masks for them from the governor's office.
"The boss will make a request for masks at the governor's office. Then, the masks will be delivered to the business. But there needs to be a maximum of 10 workers," Çolak added.
Employees of larger private businesses will be eligible to collect masks for free at pharmacies with their unique codes.
There have been some 120,000,000 surgical masks distributed to pharmacies, and some 100,000,000 of them were collected, Çolak noted.