Each year, approximately 500,000 people from around the world travel to Turkey for medical treatment or aesthetic procedures. The number of patients continues to soar, but questions have also been raised about the quality of treatments, the diligence of regulation and the satisfaction of patients. Longevita, one of the leading medical tourism companies in the United Kingdom, investigated the veracity of some of the claims made in British tabloids.

In the past decade, Turkey has become one of the top destinations for medical travel. But this huge success comes with a huge responsibility. Longevita looked into some of the claims made in the British media and found some serious misinformation.

One of the misconceptions that have been voiced in the tabloid media is that it is legal to perform operations in Turkey at facilities that are not intended for medical use. In an article published in one of the most read tabloids in the U.K., it was claimed that "Turkish surgeons can operate in a garage if they wanted to." It is easy to discover with a simple Google search that this is untrue. Even so, we still wanted to hear from an experienced professional in the clinical research field, the director of Mira Projects, Sayeste Bibin. Bibin says: "In Turkey, operating room conditions and surgical practices comply with the patient health safety and universal protocol determined by the World Health Organization (WHO). The General Directorate of Health Services has the power to authorize and license health institutions and organizations, and to cancel these permits and licenses temporarily or indefinitely when necessary. Therefore, private hospitals can only operate with the permission/license they receive from the administration according to Article 355 of the Presidential Decree. In addition to that, private hospital requirements were also taken under control with the Private Hospitals Regulation legislation, there is a specific article about the operating rooms in this regulation. Hospitals are frequently inspected by the Ministry of Health Inspection Board."

Turkey has robust regulations when it comes to licensing premises for medical use. But it also has robust regulations regarding malpractice insurance. One of the claims made in the British press was that Turkish surgeons do not need insurance to practice their profession. This is entirely false. By law, all doctors must have insurance in Turkey. This is called "compulsory financial liability insurance" for cases of medical malpractice and it provides pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages while also covering the litigation expenses of doctors, dentists and specialist chambers working in private or public health institutions and organizations.

It is not always easy to pick through real information about medical treatment in the media because quite often competitors give biased views or the tabloid media feeds into prejudices. Any medical treatment decision must be made by a well-informed patient, so each individual must do their homework very thoroughly, keeping the focus on respectable sources.

It’s the word-of-mouth successes that draw people into Turkey to get the cosmetic treatment they need. But there is also a considerable amount of recent statistics available about medical care in Turkey. With its medical faculties joining the club of the 500 best universities in the world, Turkey has no shortage of well-educated medical staff. Highly qualified surgeons and full-fledged hospitals are some of the reasons why medical travelers prefer Turkey. Nearly 50 medical facilities in Turkey are accredited by the Joint Commission International, of which over 90% are hospitals. It ranks third among Junior Chamber International (JCI) accredited hospitals worldwide. In the past two decades, the number of accredited hospitals specializing in cardiology, transplants, plastic surgery and advanced oncotherapy has grown exponentially. JCI is a nonprofit health accreditation organization based in the United States. It is the top criterion for medical travelers.

Turkey invests heavily in its health system. Statista estimated that the total health care expenditures in Turkey will reach TL 233 billion ($14.23 billion) by 2020. Health care spending increased exponentially from 2000 to 2020, especially in the last five years, where it more than doubled since 2015. Turkish hospitals, particularly private hospitals, have seen one of the most substantial growth rates among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in the past decade. All the hospitals are regulated and controlled by the Ministry of Health regardless of whether they are public or private.

Another essential parameter in assessing quality health care is patient satisfaction. Research firm Ipsos reported in a 2021 survey that "32% of Turkish individuals rated the quality of their health care as very good or good. Among the high-income countries like Germany, France and the U.K. this figure is 39%, 47% and 52%, respectively. According to the findings of a previous survey done by Ipsos, the percentage of Turkish citizens who trust the health care system in their country to provide them with the best treatment is 43%. This percentage is also 43% in the United States and 45% in Germany."

The onus to make an informed decision lies with the patient. Finding the best surgeon, clinic and hospital for your specific needs requires that you do your research before making a decision, just as it does in your home country. There are problems with regulations in the U.K. when it comes to cosmetic procedures. In the U.K. there are no regulations around Botox and filler treatments, which means the actual treatment can be performed by anyone with or without training. The U.K. government has plans to tighten the regulations but nothing has been done yet. In Turkey, there are stricter regulations regarding nonsurgical cosmetic treatments. Only aesthetic surgeons, dermatologists and specialist doctors can administer Botox and derma fillers.

For more invasive surgical procedures in the U.K., patients need to be extra vigilant because regulations are dysfunctional. A very worrying report by the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death found that nearly three-quarters of clinics in the sector in the U.K. operate effectively unregulated, adding that eight out of 10 providers who offer complex surgeries like breast reductions "do not perform these anywhere near enough to maintain an appropriate skillset and that a third do not even allow patients a 'cooling off' period when they book procedures." The report added that less than half of operating theaters were properly equipped to perform surgery and one in 10 of the clinics actually ceased to exist between being identified and being approached.

Neither at home nor abroad, patients cannot be complacent about making decisions about their health. Here is a list of things to check before you go ahead with any procedure, anywhere: