Health Ministry to cover 114 SMA patients' medicine expenses after 8-month-old baby dies

Turkey's Health Ministry has sent a letter to the Social Security Institution (SGK), the government's health insurance scheme, to cover all medical expenses for 114 spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) patients in the country, after an 8-month-old baby died due to a lack of financial means, according to daily Habertürk.

The ministry letter reportedly indicated that among the 253 SMA patients who applied for their medicine expenses to be covered, 132 of them were diagnosed with type 1, which is considered the most severe form of SMA, as the illness is an inherited condition appears when the child is between 3-6 months of age. 

Out of the 132, only 114 patient patients were reportedly eligible to receive the specific medication as the remaining 18 did not meet the specific international scientific criteria reported by the medicine provider firm. 

The ministry's move came two days after an 8-month-old baby with this illness, Eymen Çapkın, died because his family lacked the financial means to cover the medicines worth 561,000 dollars (around 2 million Turkish Liras), despite a fundraising event. 

At the time of Çapkın's death, some 300,000 dollars (1.07 million liras) were reportedly still required to secure medicine for his treatment. 

Çapkın had been hooked up to a respirator at a hospital for the past 2.5 months in the Marmara province of Sakarya.