Foreigners, Healthcare, and Turkiye

There is currently a law in Turkiye that says that foreigners cannot be employed in the healthcare sector.  Only Turkish citizens can be employed or accept payment for work as a doctor, nurse, midwife, dentist, dental assistant, chiropractor, etc.  For this reason, my midwife has been working illegally by helping women to have natural births in Istanbul, mostly in the hospitals.  She has come under scrutiny recently for a homebirth that she didn't actually attend and is now afraid that she is being watched and may be prosecuted and/or deported.   This has lead her to the decision that she is unable to attend the birth of our child in March.  While I completely respect her decision and the reasons that she made it, I am still very disappointed that she will not be able to work with us for a homebirth.

Unfortunately, there are no homebirth midwives in the Istanbul area (that we know of, anyway).  Apparently, there is some law prohibiting trained professionals (doctors, nurses, midwives) from attending births at home, because there are so many doctors and hospitals that do deliveries now, it's simply "not needed."  Nevermind the astronomical surgical birth rate, as well as the postpartum infection rate, lack of breastfeeding and self-care education, and the babies who die due to rampant infection in the nurseries.  Some women, myself included, just feel safer and more comfortable birthing at home.  Mind you, it's not illegal to birth at home.  It's just illegal to be attended by someone who actually knows what they're doing.  You can have all the hand-wringing idiots you like, but don't have anyone there who is NRP certified or knows anything at all about medicine, herbs, or natural methods of healing.

I got to thinking the other day--I'm a registered nurse *and* I'm a foreigner.  I have labor and delivery, as well as postpartum experience.  I have experience with homebirth and breastfeeding education.  Can I be prosecuted for delivering my own baby at home and then taking care of myself?  A rhetorical question, really, but I can see it happening.