BY DERYA ULUDUZ
The Turkish Stroke Patient Society (BEYINDER), a member of the Stroke Alliance for Europe (SAFE), organized the first symposium for stroke survivors and their caregivers in Turkey on World Stroke Day 2018, acknowledging the importance of acute management in stroke, long-term commitment, and attention to the needs and rights of stroke patients for better outcomes. The full day symposium was titled “İnme Hasta ve Hasta Yakınları Sempozyumu,” which is Turkish for the “Symposium of the Stroke Survivors and Their Caregivers.”
BEYINDER was founded in 2017 and became a member of SAFE shortly after. We have strong collaborations with SAFE to raise awareness with respect to strokes. Every year, 15 million people suffer strokes worldwide, and it is the leading cause of disability. BEYINDER also publishes a stroke magazine for patients every three months.
The symposium, organized at the Altunizade Event Center in Istanbul, was attended by stroke survivors and their caregivers with the participation of health directors and heads of emergency services. The most important target of this event was the public; we created simple messages to promote via social media, newspapers, and press. The event relevance and the topics of the sessions (importance of primary prevention, emergency management interventions, and life after stroke for better outcome) were appraised by the TV channels, social media, news agencies, and newspapers. They focused on our activity on their main bulletins.
Social media
The main aim of this symposium was to provide close collaborations between stroke survivors, stroke neurologists, and policymakers to solve the main problems. In one of the sessions, we gave the microphone to the patients and discussed the problems they experienced and the needs of those patients. The second important target for this event was policymakers and the Ministry of Health. BEYINDER is now working to prepare a report about the conclusion of the symposium and the tribulations of those patients, and will contact the Ministry of Health to discuss and facilitate the solutions.
