Latest news with #MarmaraUniversity
Telegraph
25-05-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Mother's body returned to UK with ‘heart missing'
The family of a British mother who died of a mysterious illness in Turkey is demanding answers after her body was returned to the UK with her 'heart missing'. Beth Martin's relatives were 'traumatised' when a post-mortem examination conducted in the UK revealed the 28-year-old's heart had been removed. Turkish authorities have insisted, however, that no organs were taken during her medical treatment in their country. Mrs Martin was with her husband, Luke, and her two children when she fell ill while on a flight to Istanbul late last month. She is said to have put her sickness down to food poisoning from a 'dodgy Chinese' before becoming 'delirious' a day later. Mrs Martin was eventually taken to Marmara University Pendik Training and Research Hospital when her condition worsened. Speaking in a video posted to Instagram, Ellie Grey, a friend of Mrs Martin, claimed: 'The insurance company wanted to move her to a private hospital, but the public hospital in Istanbul were not co-operating, they were being slow and delaying reports and not sending information over. 'They transferred her to another hospital to have an angiography done, but they said the heart was fine and transferred her back and still didn't transfer her to a private hospital. Then she died.' Writing on a Go Fund Me page set up to cover medical costs, Robert Hammond, a family friend, claimed her family had been kept in the dark about the seriousness of her condition and had suggested doctors were unaware that Mrs Martin was allergic to penicillin. He alleges she was left feeling scared while being 'pinned down' and 'prodded invasively' by medical staff. Following Mrs Martin's hospitalisation, her mother travelled to Istanbul with Mr Martin's mother. They were prevented from seeing Mrs Martin for hours by medical staff, however, Mr Hammond claimed. Mr Martin was meanwhile being accused of 'poisoning' his wife by Turkish police, before being released without charge. They are said to have interrogated him by using hotel staff as translators, before making him sign a document stating that his wife had died at 9am that day. According to Mr Hammond, however, when Mrs Martin's mother was eventually allowed to see her she remained 'barely' alive. That evening, he added, the hospital called Mr Martin and said that Mrs Martin had now died. He is said to have been left 'reeling' while his children felt 'traumatised' by Mrs Martin's sudden death and the manner in which she had been treated. Grey has alleged that the hospital failed to provide adequate treatment for her friend. 'They said they did 45 minutes of CPR but anyone who has ever had CPR or has seen CPR knows how brutal it is,' she said. 'When I saw Beth in the morgue after she had her hair in two French plaits and they were perfect. There is no way they did CPR for 45 minutes, I know that.' Cause of death Turkish Ministry of Health officials have said Mrs Martin died after a 'cardiac arrest due to multiple organ failure' but did not explain its cause. On Tuesday, Mr Martin flew back to Britain with his wife's body after breaking the news to their children that she had died. A post mortem examination carried out in the UK revealed her heart had been removed. Turkish officials have claimed Mrs Martin 'did not undergo any surgical procedures during her treatment at the hospital' and that there 'was no question of any organs being removed'. Her family now have an uncertain six months ahead as they wait for a coroner's inquest to be held into the exact cause of Mrs Martin's death. More than £250,000 has been raised for Mrs Martin's family via the Go Fund Me page. 'They are grieving, traumatised – and now trying to put the pieces of their family back together,' he wrote. 'Luke believes passionately that this is something that cannot be taken lying down.'
News.com.au
25-05-2025
- Health
- News.com.au
Mystery surrounds British mother's sudden death while on holiday
Turkish officials are not saying definitively what killed a vacationing British mother whose heart was allegedly removed from her chest cavity. Beth Martin, 28, reported feeling ill on her flight from the UK to Turkey, and initially dismissed it as food poisoning. However, within hours of touching down in Istanbul, Martin grew 'delirious,' and was hospitalised, New York Post reported. The mother of two died the very next day, on April 28, Daily Mail reported. Beth's husband, Luke, claimed Turkish officials were less than forthcoming with him, and initially suspected him of poisoning her. He was able to have his wife's body flown back to the UK, where British coroners told him the unimaginable: Beth's heart had been removed, he said. The Turkish Ministry of Health revealed Beth's cause of death was 'cardiac arrest due to multiple organ failure', but did not go into detail about what caused that. The Turkish government further refuted the British coroners' claims, insisting she 'did not undergo any surgical procedures' during a preliminary autopsy at the hospital where she died. Her family now wonders if her doctors at Turkey's Marmara University Pendik Education and Research Hospital in Istanbul missed something, or may have administered penicillin before learning she was allergic to the drug. The hospital is now being investigated for Martin's death. It could take coroners in England six months to determine what caused Martin's organs to start shutting down.
Scottish Sun
23-05-2025
- Health
- Scottish Sun
Chilling travel warning over Turkey organ harvesting after Brit mum Beth Martin has ‘heart taken' following tragic death
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) CHILLING travel warnings have been issued for tourists visiting Turkey amid Brit mum Beth Martin's mysterious death in Istanbul's public hospital. Ms Martin, 28, tragically died after suddenly falling ill during her dream holiday in the country. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 8 Luke and Beth Martin had been on a dream holiday to Turkey when tragedy struck on April 27 Credit: GoFundMe 8 Mum Beth from Portsmouth reportedly fell ill on her way to Turkey Credit: GoFundMe 8 Marmara University Pendik Training and Research Hospital in Istanbul where Ms Martin died She was rushed to a two-star-rated public hospital, where she is said to have taken her last breath and had her heart allegedly removed without any permission. The Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) warns that coroners in Turkey can take small tissue samples and organs for testing "without the family's permission" under Turkish laws. The advisory says that these orphans are usually returned before the person's body is released. However, Turkish authorities "might keep the body parts without permission in exceptional circumstances", the foreign office warned. The travel warning was placed before Ms Martin's death and has nothing to do with her tragic case. That's because hospitals in Turkey have faced accusations of stealing organs and facilitating illegal transplants. Meanwhile, the British government in its travel advisory warned tourists to be aware of medical treatments in the country. The Foreign Office suggested that people visiting the country for medical tourism should exercise caution and discuss plans with a UK doctor beforehand. The travel advisory reads: "We are aware of six British nationals having died in Turkey in 2024 following medical procedures. "Some British nationals have also experienced complications and needed further treatment or surgery following their procedure." Brit mum, 28, mysteriously dies on Turkey holiday before horrified family find 'her HEART had been removed by doctors' Ms Martin was wheeled to Marmara University Pendik Training and Research Hospital - a low-rated public hospital built on the outskirts of the Turkish capital. After scrambling for an ambulance, she was finally admitted to the hospital, which offers Istanbul's International Patient Service serving foreign patients. The doctors are understood to have checked her heart by performing an angiogram - a form of X-ray that shows blood vessels. After doing the checks, the doctors told husband Luke they did not find anything suspicious. However, Ms Martin was dead by the very next day - leaving Luke to explain the tragedy to their two young children, aged 8 and 5. Her family claims they were left completely in the dark by Turkish authorities throughout the whole ordeal. And sickeningly, once they finally got back to the UK with her body, a UK autopsy revealed her heart had been removed - without any prior consent or authorisation. Marmara Pendik Hospital is now facing a negligence investigation over Ms Martin's sudden death, according to Ms Martin's family. The Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) is also making its own enquiries with local authorities, the Daily Mail reports. 8 The public hospital has a low rating on Google, averaging just two stars. A website operated by the Istanbul Provincial Directorate of Health states that the hospital's principles are "transparency and accountability [with] people at the focal point of the fairness of the health service that is excellent". The Sun has reached out to the hospital for comment. Meanwhile, Luke told how he was then shocked when Turkish police initially accused him of poisoning and killing his wife after her shocking death. She was being treated in intensive care, he said, before adding he was banned from seeing her. Beth and Luke's parents flew out the following day and were again kept in the dark. They were then shocked to discover Beth had been transferred to another hospital overnight, due to "concerns with her heart", with none of the family members informed. Close friend Ellie, who travelled to Turkey to try and help, detailed her experience of what happened after Beth's death. She revealed that Beth was supposed to be transferred to a private clinic. But the public hospital was slow to act and "stopped her" from doing so. She told how the doctors were acting strangely. Ellie explained: "All they went on about is 'are you going to sue the hospital? Sign this bit of paper'. 8 The hospital has low ratings on Google 8 Beth pictured with her husband Luke Credit: gofundme 8 Luke was initially accused of poisoning Beth Credit: GoFundMe "I said: 'Is there something we should be suing for? Do you know something we don't? Because that's really suspicious.'" The family, who have not been told her cause of death, claim they were also forced to carry Beth in a body bag through the hospital. She blasted the hospitals, saying: "The insurance company wanted to move her to a private hospital but the public hospital in Istanbul were not cooperating, they were being slow and delaying reports and not sending information over. "They stopped her." She noted how suspicious it was that Beth's hair was in "perfect" shape despite the mum undergoing "45 minutes of CPR". She speculated: "They said they did 45 minutes of CPR but anyone who has ever had CPR or has seen CPR knows how brutal it is. "When I saw Beth in the morgue after she had her hair in two French plaits and they were perfect. "There is no way they did CPR for 45 minutes, I know that," she defiantly stated." She added that medical reports rule out food poisoning as a cause of death, but they still do not confirm how exactly the mum died.
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Erdogan: Turkey's all-powerful leader of 20 years
From humble beginnings, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has grown into a political giant, leading Turkey for 22 years and reshaping his country more than any leader since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the revered father of the modern republic. Despite being buffeted by a series of crises, he still came out on top in the 2023 presidential race, maintaining his grip on power. But he has been criticised for his increasingly repressive rule over the past years - removing checks on his own power and sidelining opponents through the court system. This past week, his government arrested and jailed his main rival, Ekrem Imamoglu, as he was voted in as the political opposition's presidential candidate. It has prompted hundreds of thousands of supporters to take to the street these past five days, protesting against Imamoglu's detention and Erdogan's political suppression. Turkey's Western allies have condemned the move, while the EU has warned his government it must show a commitment to democratic norms. But Erdogan has been on the path to autocracy for nearly a decade now, analysts say. After he survived a coup attempt in 2016, he turned his presidency into an ever more powerful executive role, and cracked down on his opponents and dissent. First as prime minister from 2003 and then as directly elected president since 2014, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has flexed Turkey's muscles as a regional power, championed Islamist causes and been quick to outmanoeuvre political opposition. Although he is the head of a Nato country, he has positioned himself as a broker in Russia's war in Ukraine and kept Sweden waiting in its bid to join the Western defensive alliance. His muscular diplomacy has riled allies in Europe and beyond. He has polarised his country but President Erdogan is a proven election winner. His supporters call him reis - "chief". Accusing his opponents of treating Turkey's electorate with contempt and failing to win them over he declared: "As 85 million, we will protect our ballot, our will and our future." Born in February 1954, Recep Tayyip Erdogan grew up the son of a coastguard, on Turkey's Black Sea coast. When he was 13, his father decided to move to Istanbul, hoping to give his five children a better upbringing. The young Erdogan sold lemonade and sesame buns to earn extra cash. He attended an Islamic school before obtaining a degree in management from Istanbul's Marmara University - and playing professional football. In the 1970s and 80s, he was active in Islamist circles, joining Necmettin Erbakan's pro-Islamic Welfare Party. As the party grew in popularity in the 1990s, Erdogan was elected as its candidate for mayor of Istanbul in 1994 and ran the city for the next four years. But his term came to an end when he was convicted of inciting racial hatred for publicly reading a nationalist poem that included the lines: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers." After serving four months in jail, he returned to politics. But his party had been banned for violating the strict secular principles of the modern Turkish state. In August 2001, he founded an new, Islamist-rooted party with ally Abdullah Gul. In 2002, the AKP won a majority in parliamentary elections, and the following year Erdogan was appointed prime minister. He remains chairman of the AKP or Justice and Development Party to this day. From 2003, he spent three terms as prime minister, presiding over a period of steady economic growth and winning praise internationally as a reformer. The middle class expanded and millions were taken out of poverty, as Erdogan prioritised giant infrastructure projects to modernise Turkey. But critics warned he was becoming increasingly autocratic. By 2013, protesters took to the streets, partly because of his government's plans to transform a much-loved park in the centre of Istanbul, but also in a challenge to more authoritarian rule. The prime minister condemned the protesters as "capulcu" (riff-raff), and neighbourhoods would clang pots and pans at nine o'clock every night in a spirit of defiance. Allegations of corruption ensnared the sons of three cabinet allies. The Gezi Park protests marked a turning point in his rule. To his detractors, he was acting more like a sultan from the Ottoman Empire than a democrat. Erdogan also fell out with a US-based Islamic scholar called Fethullah Gulen, whose social and cultural movement had helped him to victory in three consecutive elections and had been active in removing the military from politics. It was a feud that would have dramatic repercussions for Turkish society. After a decade of his rule, Erdogan's party also moved to lift a ban on women wearing headscarves in public services that was introduced after a military coup in 1980. The ban was eventually lifted for women in the police, military and judiciary. Critics complained he had chipped away at the pillars of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's secular republic. While religious himself, Erdogan always denied wanting to impose Islamic values, insisting he supported the rights of Turks to express their religion more openly. However, he has repeatedly supported criminalising adultery. And as a father of four, he has said "no Muslim family" should consider birth control or family planning. "We will multiply our descendants," he said in May 2016. He has extolled motherhood, condemned feminists, and said men and women cannot be treated equally. Erdogan has long championed Islamist causes - and was known to give the four-finger salute of Egypt's repressed Muslim Brotherhood. In July 2020, he oversaw the conversion of Istanbul's historic Hagia Sophia into a mosque, angering many Christians. Built 1,500 years ago as a cathedral, it was made into a mosque by the Ottoman Turks, but Ataturk had turned it into a museum - a symbol of the new secular state. Barred from running again for prime minister, in 2014 he stood for the largely ceremonial role of president in unprecedented direct elections. He had big plans for reforming the post, creating a new constitution that would benefit all Turks and place their country among the world's top 10 economies. But early in his presidency, he faced two jolts to his power. His party lost its majority in parliament for several months in a 2015 vote, and then months later, in 2016, Turkey witnessed its first violent attempted coup for decades. Rebel soldiers came close to capturing the president, holidaying at a coastal resort, but he was airlifted to safety. In the early hours of 16 July, he emerged triumphant at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport, to the cheers of supporters. Almost 300 civilians were killed as they blocked the advance of the coup plotters. The president appeared on national TV and rallied supporters in Istanbul, declaring he was the "chief commander". But the strain was clear when he sobbed openly while giving a speech at the funeral of a close friend, shot with his son by mutinous soldiers. How Erdogan remoulded Turkey The plot was blamed on the Gulen movement and led to some 150,000 public servants being sacked and more than 50,000 people being detained, including soldiers, journalists, lawyers, police officers, academics and Kurdish politicians. This crackdown on critics caused alarm abroad, contributing to frosty relations with the EU: Turkey's bid to join the union has not progressed for years. Arguments over an influx of migrants into Greece exacerbated the ill-feeling. But from his gleaming, 1,000-room Ak Saray palace overlooking Ankara, President Erdogan's position appeared more secure than ever. He narrowly won a 2017 referendum granting him sweeping presidential powers, including the right to impose a state of emergency and appoint top public officials as well as intervene in the legal system. A year later, he secured outright victory in the first round of a presidential poll. His core vote lies in small Anatolian towns and rural, conservative areas. In 2019, his party lost in the three biggest cities - Istanbul; the capital, Ankara; and Izmir. Losing the Istanbul mayoralty narrowly to Imamoglu of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) was a bitter blow to Erdogan, who was the city's mayor in the 1990s. He never accepted the result. Imamoglu was ahead of the president in the opinion polls before he was barred from running in the 2023 May presidential elections. The president and his allies were accused of using the courts to disqualify the popular mayor from the vote. Imamoglu was given a jail sentence in 2022 for insulting a public official, but he has been appealing against it, which allowed him to remain in politics. Imamoglu's arrest and charges this time around concern more serious charges of terrorism and corruption. Turkish media on Monday reported his arrest with the inference that he had been the most credible challenger to Erdogan. Last year the president removed several elected mayors who belonged to opposition parties, replacing them with government-appointed ones. Activists, politicians, journalists and also the country's top business group have become targets of contentious court cases. But the Istanbul mayor's arrest in recent days is seen as an escalation in Erdogan's tendency to wield his powers to eliminate rivals. Analysts argue he is making the move at an opportune moment on the world stage: European pressure on Turkey is constrained by Nato's defence concerns in regards to the Ukraine-Russia war, and there is little White House appetite to criticise authoritarianism in other countries. Despite being the leader of a Nato state, Erdogan has long held close ties with Russia's Vladimir Putin and has sought a pivotal role as a mediator in the conflict in Ukraine. Unlike most European powers, Turkey has engaged directly in both military support for Ukraine and diplomatic outreach to Russia.
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Turkey's actors, artists under pressure as govt turns up the heat
Ayse Barim, a renowned manager of Turkish television stars, has always steered clear of politics, but that did not help her escape prison on charges of "attempting to overthrow the government". Barim, put into pre-trial detention on Monday, joined a long list of personalities being prosecuted by the authorities, a move denounced by opposition parties that accuse the government of using the judiciary to intimidate dissidents. The charges against Barim date back to 2013 when protests started over the government's urbanisation plans of Gezi park in the heart of Istanbul. Prosecutors accuse her of "pushing" her actors to take part in anti-government demos, a claim she denies. Famous actors including Halit Ergenc, star of the world-famous Turkish series "The Magnificent Century", are also under judicial scrutiny as part of the same probe. Ergenc was summoned for questioning last Friday. For Mehmet Esen, actor and former president of the Turkish Film Workers' Union, it is an attempt to put a stranglehold on the cultural sector, one of the few realms not entirely controlled by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's conservative government. "Artists have great influence in Turkey. What's more, most of them are dissidents. They take a stand against injustice. It's clear that the government wants to break that," Esen said. - Power struggle - Speeches delivered by artists at film festival ceremonies, or the scripts of some Turkish TV series that break audience records, are often critical of the government and touch on pressing issues in society including women's rights or the polarisation between conservatives and secularists. "The cultural sphere has become an area of power struggle between the opposition and the government," said Goksel Aymaz, a sociologist at Marmara University in Istanbul. According to Aymaz, even if Barim was not politically engaged, this did not prevent the government from deeming her "a force" behind the Gezi protests. "As long as she's a prominent figure in the series sector, it doesn't matter whether she's politicised or not," he said. "The government's aim is to reshape the industry by imposing its own influence, in order to perpetuate its power." -Istanbul mayor targeted- Turkish authorities regularly target journalists, lawyers and elected political representatives, especially since the failed 2016 coup against the government. In mid-January, prosecutors opened an investigation against the Istanbul Bar Association on charges of "spreading terrorist propaganda", accusing it of links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies. The probe was opened because lawyers had called for an investigation into the death of two Turkish Kurdish journalists in Syria in late December, in an area where Kurdish fighters were operating. Since local elections in March last year, 10 opposition mayors have also been arrested, removed from office and replaced by government-appointed administrators. And on Tuesday, three journalists from the opposition TV station Halk TV were arrested for broadcasting an interview with a forensic expert in an investigation into Istanbul's popular Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu. Two of them were released under judicial control Wednesday. Imamoglu, Erdogan's main political rival, was summoned to appear before the public prosecutor on Friday, even though he is already the target of numerous other legal proceedings. According to observers, the investigation targeting the television sector could also be aimed at Imamoglu, who was re-elected with fanfare as mayor of Turkey's largest city. Pro-government daily Yeni Safak has already accused Barim of using her influence to support the mayor. "The power of justice is being abused to spread fear in all strata of society. We are not afraid and we will not remain silent", Imamoglu commented on X. His main opposition CHP party also denounced what it described as a "climate of fear". "The government is trying to discourage civil society by showing that it can neutralise the journalists or politicians it trusts," political scientist Mesut Yegen said on the private broadcaster Ilke TV on Tuesday. "Thus it is trying to prevent any street movement that might lead to a call for early elections," he said. bg/ach/fo/js
