19.10.2026 11:01
In the case of Deniz Esin Bozoklar, who was beaten by nurse Hazel Dırık Bağrıyanık while in an incubator in Kahramanmaraş in 2021, the report of the Higher Council of Forensic Medicine has reached the court. The 45-member council reported that no causal link could be established between the nurse's actions and the neurological condition in the child, but that the fracture in the leg severely affected life functions. The mother and father reacted to the report.
In the lawsuit concerning the allegation that Deniz Esin Bozoklar (5), in Kahramanmaraş, was left mentally and physically disabled as a result of being beaten by nurse Hazel Dırık Bağrıyanık while in an incubator, the report of the Higher Council of Forensic Medicine has reached the court. The report stated that no causal link could be established between the actions carried out by the nurse and the neurological condition detected in the baby. Reacting to the report, Abdullah Bozoklar said, "From birth until the violence was inflicted, there was no neurological follow-up, no use of epilepsy medication, no preliminary diagnosis related to cerebral palsy. You say, 'Your child was born prematurely; these diseases would have occurred anyway.' Were all premature children born to date like this?"
Sema-Abdullah Bozoklar couple's daughter Deniz Esin Bozoklar, born in 2021 at KSÜ Health Practice and Research Hospital, was placed in an incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit because she was born with low weight. On May 26, 2021, according to the allegation, nurse Hazel Dırık Bağrıyanık inflicted violence on the baby while trying to draw blood. During the 14-minute blood-drawing procedure, also recorded by the hospital's security camera, Bağrıyanık struck Deniz Esin Bozoklar's head repeatedly and squeezed her leg, after which the baby became unresponsive.
After the footage emerged, Hazel Dırık Bağrıyanık was arrested, and in the case in which she was tried on the charge of "intentional injury" with a request for up to 3 years' imprisonment, the file was sent to the Forensic Medicine Institute. Due to contradictions among the reports received, the file was sent by the court to the Higher Council of the Forensic Medicine Institute.
NO CAUSAL LINK COULD BE ESTABLISHED IN THE REPORT
The 45-member higher council that examined the file sent its prepared report to the court. In the report prepared unanimously by the council, it was recorded that the nurse shook the baby while providing care and engaged in repeated blunt traumatic actions to the head and facial area, but no pathology was detected inside the head in ultrasound examinations, there was no cranial MRI (brain scan) from the date of the incident, and there was no finding indicating skull fracture, intracranial bleeding, or diffuse axonal injury. In the report, which stated that there was no medical evidence that the neurological condition detected in the baby's post-hospitalization follow-ups was caused by the blunt traumatic actions carried out by the relevant nurse, it was said:
"The neurological condition detected in the baby's follow-ups after discharge is a condition expected in premature babies with profound developmental delay; when all judicial and medical documents are evaluated together, it was assessed that it was due to her existing constitutional condition (prematurity, intrauterine growth retardation), and no causal link could be established between the actions performed by the relevant nurse and the neurological condition detected in the baby. After examination of the radiological images dated to the incident, medical documents, camera recordings, and expert reports, it was assessed that the traumatic action applied by the relevant nurse to the left thigh area during the baby's care on May 26, 2021, during intensive care follow-ups caused a shaft fracture in the left femur; therefore, it was unanimously opined that her injury was not a condition that endangered the life of the minor, that its effect on the minor was not mild enough to be remedied by a simple medical intervention, and that the fracture was of a nature that would severely affect life functions."
FATHER: A REPORT AS IF MOCKING US
Father Abdullah Bozoklar reacted to the report. Stating that until the violence was inflicted there had been no diagnosis of any illness concerning his daughter, Bozoklar said:
"It writes brain concussion, it writes head concussion, it writes the violence for 14 minutes, and when you look back, it writes that her leg was broken and that it affected her life functions, 'but we could not establish a causal link.' So this is an absurd report, a report as if mocking us. It is a report signed unanimously by 45 people, but in all of the articles above, everything about the incident is stated, and it was attributed to the patient's being premature. From birth until the violence was inflicted, there was no neurological follow-up, no use of any epilepsy medication, no preliminary diagnosis related to cerebral palsy, nothing. You turn around and say, 'Your child was born prematurely; these diseases would have occurred anyway.' These diseases were a 1 percent possibility, a 2 percent possibility. So were all premature children born to date like this?"
MOTHER: SHOULD THIS CHILD HAVE SAID 'TAKE AN MRI OF ME'?
Mother Sema Bozoklar said, "In the report that came, you write the severity of the child's leg fracture, the severity of the blow inflicted on the child, the violence, everything. In the end, because 'no MRI was taken,' you place the responsibility for this on my child. Should this child have said, 'Take an MRI of me'? The ones who should really be investigated are the responsible people there, not my child. Investigate the responsible people there, then: why did they not take an MRI of my child, why did they not investigate in detail? In my opinion, investigate these before my child."