With opening borders and making tourism more and more available in terms of travel regulations, finance, a variety of the traveling means and affordable destinations, medical tourism has gained a special place and becomes more and more popular among customers of all social groups and levels.
Why To Search for Health Services Abroad?
Being not satisfied with the local health services, their costs or due to the absence of some services, patients start looking for the medical opportunities in other countries.
When we think about health services, moreover in a different country, there are several things which are usually taken into consideration according to the recent research data:
- quality of clinicians;
- quality of facilities;
- reputation of the clinicians / hospitals;
- information available and its accessibility;
- price for services;
- accessibility of the destination or easiness to travel
The distribution of the tourists flow is quite different and it tends to change depending on the political and economic situations, powers of influence, reputation and costs, easiness to travel and attractiveness of the services themselves.
Among a variety of places and destinations for medical services and health tourism, Turkey has occupied a firm position with its attractive costs, quality of the hospitals, beautiful locations, speed of diagnostics and treatment provision.
Thanks to its geographical location Turkey has become Choice Number One for patience coming from Middle East and Europe, including neighbouring countries and those which are quite far (e.g. Indonesia, Sri Lanka, etc.).
So, What Makes Turkey So Attractive in Terms of the Medical Services?
Together with a favourable geographical location and climate peculiarities, the country has gained a positive image worldwide due to a big variety of medical infrastructure and facilities.
The medical centres are equipped with modern diagnostic machines, tools and all necessary chemicals to make diagnostics quick and to provide necessary treatment prescriptions in a fast way for the patients to keep up with their travel plans.
Together with that, available language services make communication easy and understandable for all patients. Whether they are coming from Eastern Europe, West or from the Arab countries, they can find appropriate interpretation services, services for translation of their medical papers and prescriptions, to make the process really fast and comprehensible.
Dynamics in the popularity of Turkey as a Medical Destination can be checked on the picture below, starting from 2013 and coming up to 2020, when some fall can be observed due to the travel restrictions, caused by the global lockdown.
Stabilising the global situation in terms of traveling is going to renew the flows of tourists coming to Turkey with a purpose to find better medical solutions and services for their health.
Meanwhile this time can be used to rethink and to revaluate potential of the country in the global market of the medical services and to consider its weaknesses contrasting with the achievements of the main competitors.
Among the weaknesses to be considered is the absence of standards on the medical services, discrepancy of provision available in private and public hospitals, necessity to enhance the medical staff’s competences on the patients’ rights, international regulations, and so on.
Together with that the hospitals and doctors working in Turkey still need international branding for their services to be known and accepted at the international level.
With the enthusiasm of the local medical business, high standards for the medical education in the country, encouraging the most talented students to choose medicine as a profession and pursue medical career with the support of the government, it is certain that the medical sector of Turkey will continue developing and gaining more popularity worldwide.
Despite national enthusiasm there are still things to consider on the way to improvements and development and namely some threats which cannot be ignored.
Among them is political instability, strong international competitions and some other factors which can be checked on the picture below.
References
Burtan Doğan, B., & Aslan, A. (2019). Türkiye’de Sağlık Turizminin Mevcut Durumu ve Ülke Ekonomisine Katkıları. 9(18), 391-420.
Saglık Turizmi Verileri. (2021). 10 28, 2021 tarihinde USHAŞ: https://www.ushas.com.tr/saglik-turizmi-verileri/ adresinden alındı
SHGM Sağlık Turizmi Daire Başkanlığı. (2021). Ministry of Health: https://saglikturizmi.saglik.gov.tr/siteagaci adresinden alındı
Tengilimoğlu, D. (2021, Ekim). Sağlık Turizmi. Eskişehir.
Uysal Şahin, Ö., & Şahin, M. (2018). Türkiye’de Sağlık Turizminin Potansiyeli ve Geleceği: SWOT Analizi. Journal of Awareness, 3(Special Issue), 287-300. doi:10.26809/joa.2018548638
The overview is based on the materials of the research and presentation done by Assoc. Prof., Dr. Alper Guzel (Gazi University, Turkey) at APBM 2021, II International Conference on Applied Psychology and Business Management
More information on the medical tourism in Turkey, suggestions, recommendations together with consultancy and translation for individuals and groups who would like to visit Turkey for the health purposes can be received by contacting us at start.inforum@gmail.com.