Turkey's health spend reaches over $38.5B in 2017

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL

Turkey’s health expenditures jumped 17.4 percent in 2017, compared with the previous year, the Turkish Statistical Institute said on Thursday.

Total costs reached 140.65 billion Turkish liras ($38.53 billion) last year, TurkStat said, up from around 120 billion Turkish liras ($39.6 billion) in 2016.

The institute said that health expenditure per capita increased to 1,751 Turkish liras ($479.7) in 2017 from 1,511 Turkish liras ($498.7) in 2016.

The proportion of total health expenditure of the country’s GDP was 4.5 percent last year and 3.5 percent in 2016.

"Out-of-pocket health expenditures made by households for treatment, pharmaceuticals etc. reached 24.4 billion Turkish liras ($6.7 billion) with an increase of 22.7 percent in the year 2017," TurkStat said.

It added: "The proportion of household health expenditure to total health expenditure was 17.1 percent in the year 2017."

The proportion of general government health expenditure to total health expenditure was 78 percent in last year and 78.5 percent in 2016.

Turkey operates 894 hospitals, 7,950 family health centers, nearly 2,700 emergency health stations, and 171 community mental health centers with around 1 million medical personnel, Fahrettin Koca, Turkish health minister, said on Tuesday.

The minister added that the number of doctors per 100,000 population was 186 in the country, under the OECD average -- 351 per 100,000 population.

Life expectancy at birth is 78, baby mortality rate per 1,000 live birth is 6.8 while mother mortality rate per 1,000 live birth is 14.6, Koca underlined.

Turkey has also general health insurance system to protect all citizens' health.

The average of U.S. dollar / Turkish lira rate was 3.65 during the last year, and 3.03 in 2016.