Turkey to expand hospital care, health minister says

By Yildiz Aktas and Baris Gundogan

ANKARA

Turkey will provide 41,000 more hospital beds to give patients greater privacy, Health Minister Recep Akdag said Thursday.

“Ninety percent of the hospitals were ward-type and the patients were in those wards,” he told Anadolu Agency’s Editors’ desk. “People need privacy more when they are ill… you have to give that patient a separate room… each of our citizens special to us and each patient will have a private room.”

Under the city hospitals project, public-private partnerships will fund health facilities. The Mersin Integrated Healthcare Campus in southern Turkey will be one of the largest healthcare complexes in Turkey, with 1,294 beds to serve 10,000 patients a day.

Akdag said Turkey was providing healthcare for Syrian refugees. “We have set up immigrant health centers,” he said. “We have provided free medical service to all the Syrians in Turkey. We have established 16 immigrant health centers so far.”

The minister added that Syrian doctors and health workers would be given special work permits to treat refugees.