In January, Dilek Ozcelik, a 27-year-old lymphoma patient, passed away. Ozcelik had made the news in 2013 when she asked for help from Erdogan Bayraktar, who was then Turkey's minister of environment and urban planning. Ozcelik refused the roll of cash Bayraktar handed to her. “I am not a beggar,” she said.

She needed access to medicines that weren't available in Turkey.

Since then, the Turkish government has repeatedly talked about grandiose plans to launch “national medicine” projects. Yet, with a growing, aging population, the need for lifesaving medicines also has increased. The data about availability and accessibility of prescription medications shows a problem that has snowballed during the past decade. For example, in 2015 alone, 1,700 pharmacies nationwide closed. Among 25,000 pharmacies, 13,000 are expected to go bankrupt at any time. From 2005 to 2015, the Turkish Pharmacists Union recorded 572 instances in which the Health Ministry called for a drop in drug prices.

This dim picture has only gotten worse with the weakening Turkish lira. In the past couple of months, an increasing number of patients have struggled to get their medication, resorting to creative methods. Not a day passes without a call on social media for help obtaining a needed prescription medication. Most of the time, patients are so desperate they are willing to pay whatever they can to save their loved ones. Even some pharmacists themselves have tried this method to assist their patients. Just like Ozcelik, many patients suffer due to the scarcity of anti-cancer drugs in Turkey. And since those drugs require prescriptions in Turkey, it's not as simple as buying them over the counter abroad and bringing them back to Turkey.