Turkey’s climate, sea, beaches, thermal springs, thalassotherapy opportunities, forests, plateaus, as well as the ease of transportation it offers with a national airline brand that flies to the most destinations in the world, such as THY, is the most ideal region for medical tourism and alternative health tourism. At the same time, our country deserves to be the focal point of quality service with university hospitals, training and research hospitals and private health institutions throughout the country in terms of medical health tourism.
With the worldwide recognition of cities such as Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Antalya, the tourism infrastructure that has become a state policy, and the share it receives from the world tourism market, Turkey will reach the desired point in health tourism thanks to good planning. It will be seen that the annual touristic visits for holiday purposes have exceeded 30,000,000 people for the last 5 years in a row, and that we have an important communication target group based on the visitor data of around 42,000,000 in 2014.
In Turkey, especially internal diseases, orthopedics, gynecology and obstetrics are the branches that most frequently accept cross-border patients. In addition to these, it should be emphasized that Turkey is the country that accepts the highest number of foreign patients for eye surgery compared to other countries. In addition, it can be stated that it has a comparative advantage in medical tourism in terms of aesthetic surgery, especially hair transplantation, compared to other countries.
However, the fact that Turkey has started to develop a strategy that is binding for both the public and private sectors in medical tourism in the last year has been the biggest negative factor that determines our position in the sector. However, both SATURK (Health Tourism Coordination Board) and Turkish Health Institutes Presidency (TUSEB) Quality and Accreditation Institutes in Health Sciences are two important structures that will accelerate our gains in the sector, which is now given more importance. Thanks to these two institutions in our country, the condition of providing services on certain criteria for health tourism will develop.
Private health institutions made agreements with foreign health insurance companies and allowed patients to come from outside for treatment purposes. However, this issue did not turn into a mass movement. In order for this mobility to become massive, the agreements must be made by the T.C. It should be done by the Ministry of Health or SATURK. The geographical location of our country and the health facilities that can be considered as the center of excellence in the health sector are among the important advantages of Turkey in health tourism. Another important advantage is the experienced physician staff trained in higher specialties. For example, as can be seen from the table, Turkey is one of the few countries with 18 different branches of science or higher specialization under Child Health and Diseases. Likewise, in eye diseases; Top specialties such as excimer laser surgery, anterior chamber surgery, retinal surgery and strabismus surgery have developed in our country. In the last 10 years, the number of associations established with the theme of health tourism has exceeded twenty. Many private hospitals have started to participate in medical tourism fairs around the world and have established “Foreign Patient Departments” or “Health Tourism Departments” to better serve patients.
The establishment of special departments for the service based on trust and offering the special attention expected by patients from a different culture has made the work of patients much easier. Private hospitals in Turkey have realized the importance of accreditation in order to provide patient flow in medical tourism for therapeutic purposes, and their work on this subject has accelerated in the last 10 years. It is observed that the number of health tourists coming to Turkey has an increasing trend in both the private and public sectors. Among the total figures of health tourism, there are patients who are evaluated within the scope of tourist health.
As can be seen from the table, the number of tourists, which has increased over the years, naturally increases the number of services offered within the scope of tourist health. As can be seen from the table, the distribution of foreigners entering our country varies by country. Although the number of tourists from Europe has increased by 1,200,000 people in the last two years, there has been a 5% decrease in the proportional distribution. The fact that the number of tourists coming from Asian countries has increased in terms of both West Asia and South Asia is promising for health tourism.
Today, Turkey is among the important countries that can be preferred for patients traveling abroad within the scope of heart diseases, aesthetic and dental operations. The most important reason why Americans prefer Turkey is that the treatment costs are usually 35-60% lower than the prices in their own countries. For example, while the price of bypass surgery is between $125,000 in the United States, the same surgery costs $25,000 in Turkey. There are different reasons for moving towards our country, depending on the country of departure. The biggest reason for patients coming from Germany is diaspora health tourism. In the current situation, Turkey receives an important but less than expected share of the world medical tourism pie. As a matter of fact, we can examine the countries with patient mobility towards Turkey in seven main classes.
- Countries with which there are close relations due to ties of kinship (such as Bulgaria, Greece, Syria)
- Countries with a large Turkish population (such as Germany, Netherlands, France),
- Developing countries that suffer from service shortages due to insufficient infrastructure and physicians (Libya, Iraq, Balkan countries) , Turkic Republics in Central Asia),
- Countries where health services are expensive (such as England, America, Germany),
- Countries with long waiting lines (such as England, Netherlands and Canada)
- Services such as dental diseases that are not covered by insurance systems countries (such as France, England, Ireland, Germany)
- Countries with high demand for specialized services (such as Middle East Countries, Balkan Countries)
Reasons for patient movement towards Turkey
- Close flight distance
- Affordable treatment costs
- Qualified staff • Quality service
- Modern medical technology
- No waiting time
- Socio-cultural similarity
Variety of accompanying touristic activities The reasons for foreigners to go out of their own country within the scope of medical tourism are very diverse. One of the most important reasons for patient movement towards Turkey is to receive high quality services at more affordable prices compared to the countries they live in. Among the other reasons for preference, hospitals that provide modern, quality service, qualified personnel and advanced technological equipment come to the fore.
As a matter of fact, the fact that it is a leader in its region especially in terms of advanced oncological treatment centers indirectly contributes to other specialties. Other reasons are briefly summarized in the table. The reasons for preference vary according to the country and region of departure. Differences should be taken into account in studies for countries and regions.
Turkey’s Strengths in Medical Tourism
Turkey is an advantageous country for medical tourism, the purpose of which is to be treated in a quality and more economical way or to improve health. These advantages can be listed as follows:
- The most important advantage of Turkey in medical tourism is the establishment of an umbrella structure to coordinate all health tourism activities and the development of a state policy (SATURK).
- Having a national airline that provides access from the highest number of flight destinations in the world, like THY
- A significant part of our health institutions have reached a level that can compete with the west in terms of technological infrastructure and is the regional leader in the infrastructure of Training and Research Hospitals
- Turkey is the world in terms of the number of hospitals accredited with JCI is also in the 2nd place.
- Its important advantage in medical tourism is that it has a large number of health-themed usable thermal resources and the usable thermal resources are number 1 in Europe
- The presence of a positive image in some countries related to Turkey.
- Our country’s suitable climate spread over 4 seasons
- Anatolia being the center of historical and touristic civilizations.
- Being within a 3-hour flight distance, which can appeal to nearly one billion people around our country.
- Turkey has a serious workforce potential with its young population.
- Availability of highly specialized and qualified human resources, especially in medical staff
- Health services in Turkey are cheaper compared to other developed countries
Opportunities
- Having a large number of citizens of Turkish origin living abroad, which is called diaspora health tourism; Turkish citizens’ desire to receive the services they trust from health personnel who provide services in their own culture and in their own language instead of receiving healthcare services from healthcare personnel with different cultures and languages,
- It is possible to use the thermal resources of our country as a “thermal health facility”, The risk of epidemic disease and poor hygiene conditions in the South East Asia Region, which provides a large number of services and will compete,
- The existence of idle capacity due to seasonality in the Turkish tourism sector,
- The possibility of our physicians living abroad to return to the country with the development of medical tourism,
- September 11 attacks Visa problem experienced by people of Middle Eastern origin due to the terrorism and acts that emerged after the post-Arab Spring period,
- People living in Central Asian Turkic Republics are seeking treatment, • The average age in developed countries has increased,
- long waiting times.
