President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hosted doctors, other health care personnel, researchers and scientists at the Presidential Complex on Wednesday for a sector convention.
Erdoğan later joined Turkish Nobel laureate in chemistry Aziz Sancar at the Science, Services and Incentive Awards organized in the latter’s name, where prominent figures of the health care field were recognized.
Erdoğan’s speech at the event was peppered with criticism of profit-oriented health care promoted by the capitalist system, as well as Türkiye’s accomplishments in the past two decades in the field, from new hospitals to boosting the number of health care professionals.
“Paradigms regarding medicine are being changed by the capitalist system. “Humanity faces a modern dilemma. In the health care sector, especially among those who dominate it, there is a growing tendency toward class divisions, with influential groups seeing themselves as a privileged layer separate from the broader public. Another issue is that medical advances, instead of being used for the benefit of humanity and to save lives, are sometimes employed in the opposite direction,” he said.
“A world where patients do not have access to health care, where medical developments evolved into end products are not equally offered to people, is not a fair, equal, livable world,” Erdoğan said. “Just as you can’t exploit a life, humankind’s dignity, just as you can’t commercialize it, you can’t treat it as a commodity. One’s body, health or disease cannot be the core of a business; it cannot be used to dominate others,” Erdoğan said.
The president then went on to explain his successive governments’ accomplishments in health care. “It became a part of our policies centered on people’s well-being. Our efforts made prevalent, quality and affordable health care a reality. We enabled citizens to have equal access to health care as guided by the principle of the social state enshrined in our Constitution,” he said.
Erdoğan recounted Türkiye’s bad record in health care before his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) came to power, from long lines outside hospitals for obtaining medicine or simply an appointment with a doctor to patients not being discharged from the hospital without paying medical bills.
“Today, with more than 1.47 million health care personnel, we are, thankfully, providing first-class medical services to our 86 million citizens. Since 2002, we have increased our workforce by 288%. In the last year and a half, we recruited 99,567 new medical personnel, including 57,504 physicians. The rise in the number of doctors in Türkiye has made not only our patients’ lives easier but also reduced the workload of our dedicated physicians. We have renovated or rebuilt 80% of our public hospitals. By adding 794 new hospitals, our public hospital system now has a total of 173,000 beds,” he said.
“Twenty-five city hospitals, which played a vital role during the COVID-19 pandemic, are now operational, and construction continues on 13 more. Work on bidding, planning and land acquisition is ongoing for nine additional city hospitals. Thanks to our strong health care infrastructure, we have become a nation capable of providing medical services to patients not only from neighboring countries but globally, including many from Europe. We have carried out countless investments, projects and transformative reforms, far too many to list here. We have achieved a major revolution in health care. The strength, capabilities and resilience of the Turkish health care system were clearly demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
“We must be among the world’s leading nations in scientific research, especially in medicine and pharmaceuticals. Likewise, we must take a new step in the production of medical devices by making the necessary R&D investments. I frequently underscore the need for a comprehensive national initiative in health care localization and domestication. Despite all our personal efforts, I am well aware that we are still far from our goals. Just as in the defense industry, we face internal and external obstacles here as well. But just as we overcame challenges in the defense sector, Allah willing, we will do the same in the production of local pharmaceuticals and medical devices. And we will continue to work toward that,” he added.
