On Wednesday, Türkiye will inaugurate its 20th city hospital, a massive health care complex serving a large population, in the capital Ankara. Etlik City Hospital will be the biggest in the country in terms of the area and will host a hotel, university, helipads and commercial spaces.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who long championed city hospitals as a private-public partnership, is expected to attend the opening ceremony.
Since 2017, when the first city hospital was inaugurated in the central province of Yozgat, 18 more have been opened across Türkiye.
City hospitals, a sharp contrast to damp, gloomy hospitals of Türkiye’s crumbling health care system in the 1990s and early 2000s, reflect the government’s health care reforms for quality service to patients in public hospitals. More spacious than regular public hospitals, which were also reformed in terms of service and infrastructure, city hospitals aim to allocate one room to each patient, unlike crowded wards of the past. Most rooms resemble hotel rooms with enough space and amenities for people accompanying patients.
Health Ministry plans to open 14 more city hospitals in the near future, bringing the number to 33 and contributing an additional 19,000 beds to Turkish hospitals’ capacity.
Etlik City Hospital, named after the neighborhood it is located in the crowded Ankara district Keçiören, will have about 4,000 beds and will be the second city hospital serving the capital. It covers an area of more than 1 million square meters. Ankara already hosts Europe’s biggest hospital, Ankara City Hospital, which was opened in 2019 and has a bed capacity of 3,732.
