Organisation of the Turkish healthcare system

It is widely believed that the Turkish healthcare system is robust, from an organisational perspective. Therefore, it proves capable of providing a wide range of services as it focuses on protecting patients’ health and on improving their quality of life. Indeed, today’s Turkey is a country that has made evident progress in improving healthcare infrastructure, increasing access to medical care, as well as developing medical education and research, accreditation and certification. In view of this, Turkey has improved the delivery of most healthcare services as a consequence of the Health Transformation Programme between 2003 and 2013. Accordingly, the following advantages of the Turkish healthcare system are most often cited: an extensive public healthcare sector; a well-integrated private healthcare sector; a wide range of healthcare services that are relatively cheap; universal health insurance for all; and the provision of healthcare for immigrants. Meanwhile, the shortcomings of the Turkish healthcare system are usually considered to be the shortage of medical staff, which mainly concerns doctors; long waiting times for service in public healthcare facilities, including in primary care; often limited healthcare services in rural areas; and limitations in the treatment of certain diseases, above all mental illness.