Turkish Health Ministry to make everyone receive medical checkups

ANKARA

The Turkish Health Ministry is planning to make every citizen receive checkups by setting up “healthy living centers” slated to accommodate 50,000 people each. 

Health Ministry Undersecretary Eyüp Gümüş said chronic diseases would also be tracked if detected in checkups. 

“We are going to make our citizens develop a tradition that will make them lead healthy lives. Checkups will be carried out and chronic diseases will be tracked this way,” Gümüş told daily Habertürk on Nov. 22, adding that patients would be able to conduct necessary examinations in these health centers. 

“Information on physical exercises will also be given. We are planning to construct 1,000 health centers primarily and are in search of locations for them,” he said. 

The ministry will review its family practice system and ensure it is done quantitatively and qualitatively, Gümüş added. 

“We will reallocate and lower the number of people appointed per family doctor,” he also said. 

Gümüş said the ministry was planning to increase the capacity of emergency services and ensure they work in coordination with each other. 

“We are working on a system in which public universities and private hospitals work together. We are going to evaluate all steps by using one software, starting from receiving the case until the end of the treatment. We are planning to restructure emergency services. We will reorganize the yellow, green and red zones. We are aiming to decrease the intensity by reactivating night polyclinics and integrate the family practice system into this practice,” he said. 

Gümüş also said the ministry aimed to circulate capital efficiently. 

“We are introducing a performance system; it will be based on the diagnoses done by doctors, and this way, we want hospitals to compete on some specific issues. We want to introduce a system where doctors earn money based on the surgeries they carry out, rather than the number of patients they treat,” he said.  

Gümüş stated that the ministry was working on opening high-quality hospitals, of which some of them are scheduled to open by the end of this year, and employ 20,000 personnel until the beginning of June 2017.  

“Some 11,000 of them will be civil servants. A vast majority of them will be made up of midwives and nurses,” he said.