Turkey opens new city hospital in Istanbul amid pandemic

ISTANBUL

Turkey has demonstrated “its power of standing on its own feet” at a time when international organizations have “lost their sense” over the novel coronavirus pandemic, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on April 20.

“We have put 10 city hospitals into service within the scope of the project, which we have implemented with the public-private cooperation method, that is followed with admiration all over the world,” he said, speaking at the opening ceremony of Başakşehir City Hospital.

“We will work together to bring our country to the place it deserves in the world order to be re-established after the coronavirus pandemic,” the president stated.

The government plans to put most of our eight city hospitals under construction until the end of this year and the rest of them to be put into service next year, he said. Turkey will produce 5,000 medical ventilators to fight the novel coronavirus by the end of May, he said. “While the world is facing difficulties, Turkey has successfully overcome hurdles to [making] medical ventilators.”

“Turkey has made history in healthcare,” he said.

He criticized the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, run by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), for not finalizing the public transportation to the hospital. “There is a municipality of Istanbul that leaves the road of this place unfinished. We immediately brought in our Transport Ministry,” he said. “A metro will come to Başakşehir City Hospital. There will be no problems in transportation,” he stated.

Also speaking at the event, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said at the new facility, built to fight COVID-19, “Just as all city hospitals in Turkey, all the beds at Basaksehir City Hospital – 2,686 beds – have intensive care equipment, and all can be used for intensive care when necessary.”

Saying that some of the tested ventilators were delivered to the Health Ministry on Monday, Technology and Industry Minister Mustafa Varank added: “Hopefully, 5,000 devices will be produced by the end of May.” While the novel coronavirus pandemic has incapacitated many developed countries, Turkey is still standing tall, he stressed.

Ventilators are nearly impossible to buy, he said, adding, “That’s why we took action at the very beginning of the process to produce these devices using our own means.”

A Turkish technology enterprise, BIOSYS, developed the device, and after the pandemic emerged, Turkish firms launched a mobilization to start mass production of the device, he said. He added that dozens of Turkish engineers worked hard and managed to set up mass production of the first indigenous intensive care ventilator in just 14 days.

The coronavirus death toll in Turkey reached 2,017 as of April 19, with 86,306 cases to date.