Officials say the roads leading to civilian hospitals are often risky, passing through conflict zones inside the city, whereas the vicinity around the Military Hospital is more secure. Yet, recent events suggest this may not be the sole reason. With the rekindled conflict further polarizing Turkey , some members of the security forces seem to no longer trust civilian hospitals in the region, whose staff is mainly Kurdish.

According to local officials, the policemen injured in the Cinar blast were taken to the Military Hospital because it was the closest. Yet, the treatment of policemen at the Military Hospital has become a general practice in the past several months as urban clashes between the security forces and militants of the PKK’s youth wing, the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), drag on.

The instruction, which this reporter heard, was repeated several times by the operator at the emergency dispatch center. Military hospitals in the southeast have long treated soldiers wounded in clashes with the PKK, but the treatment of police officers in the same hospitals is something new.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — At 11 p.m. Jan. 13, a powerful explosion jolted the town of Cinar in Turkey’s conflict-torn southeast . The police’s local headquarters and adjacent lodgings were under attack, hit by a truck bomb blamed on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The emergency health service in Diyarbakir, the provincial capital some 30 kilometers (18 miles) away, went on alert, dispatching ambulances to bring the more than 30 wounded to the city hospitals. In the wireless communications, ambulance drivers were instructed to “take the wounded policemen and their families to the Military Hospital.”

Gokalp told Al-Monitor that the Emergency Health Service Coordination Center, which is subordinate to the governor’s office, used to direct the parties of the conflict to different hospitals to avoid any unpleasant encounters. Diyarbakir’s Dicle University Hospital was the place where wounded security personnel were sent. “Some prejudiced people, however, complained they were not properly taken care of at the university hospital. The press picked this up with headlines about ‘terrorist doctors’ working in the hospital. And then [the policemen] began to be taken to the Military Hospital,” he said.

The allegations Gokalp mentioned popped up in November. A police officer injured in clashes in Silvan, a town near Diyarbakir, complained he was not given proper care at the Dicle University Hospital, claiming that the staff accorded more attention to a PKK militant wounded in the same clashes.

The university denied the charges. Sait Alan, the chief physician, said no PKK militant had been hospitalized simultaneously with the policeman in the first place. He added, “The claims that the policeman was not given attention or a room are not true. All our staff is both very experienced and sensitive on these issues. After all necessary interventions were made, the patient was transferred to the hospital of his choice.”

The policeman’s allegations, however, spawned acrimonious headlines in the pro-government media. One newspaper, for instance, called the Dicle University Hospital a “terrorist den,” while another described the medical staff as PKK sympathizers “doing their best to prevent the recovery” of security personnel. The controversy grew further on social media and eventually led to the hospital change.

Gokalp says hospital statistics disprove the allegations. “We have obtained figures from the hospital staff. Accordingly, 176 members of the security forces have been brought to the hospital [since the clashes began]. Three of them were dead and taken directly to the morgue. Six died on the way to the hospital. Four died in intensive care and another during surgery. The treatment of all others resulted in recovery,” he said.

Changing the policemen’s hospital is an understandable security measure, but the way it was reflected to the public has offended the doctors, Gokalp said.

“Once we put the white coat on, differences of gender, religion, ethnicity, language and ideas disappear for us. A measure like this [changing hospitals] is fine, but the notion of medical personnel discriminating between patients is out of the question,” he said.

“Being branded as ‘terrorist doctors’ and shown as targets by the pro-government media has deeply hurt us. All medical workers understand the precaution decision, but we are all offended by reports suggesting we have failed to fulfill our duties. You may fail to save a person with a bullet in his brains, but beyond that, fueling a perception that doctors are not doing their duties is wrong,” he added.

Vahhac Alp, another Kurdish doctor in Diyarbakir, also struggled to understand why local medics were vilified. He wondered whether this could be linked to the activism of “White Forum for Peace,” a platform of medics who advocate an end to the conflict as well as unrestricted medical help for the wounded, given the many cases of ambulances being barred from taking even civilians from besieged neighborhoods.

“Is this happening because we are standing up against war and defending universal principles of human rights and medical ethics? I don’t know. Civilian medics are being sidelined. … Perhaps they don’t want the number of wounded and dead security personnel to be known. I have no clear idea on this,” Alp told Al-Monitor.

“The pro-government media has put medical workers in the crosshairs. Campaigns on social media have claimed the security forces are not being taken care of, that the medical workers here are terrorists and should not be trusted. Dicle University, however, has released statistics clearly showing the level of medical care,” Alp said. “Since the wounded are security personnel, the choice [of a military hospital] is fine. But turning this into a campaign targeting civilian medical staff is extremely wrong. It is a very offensive attitude that blights one’s hopes in humanity.”

After the bomb attack in Cinar, police repeatedly chided the emergency dispatch center, saying ambulances were too slow in transporting the wounded. Two days later, prosecutors launched investigations both into the emergency service and the fire brigade on charges they “failed to properly carry out their duties.”