Health in Turkey
[2] By covering most of the population, the General Health Insurance Scheme is financed by employers, employees, and government contributions through the Social Security Institution.
These discrepancies can be seen in terms of infant mortality between rural and urban areas and different parts of the country, although these have been declining over the years.
[5] The causes of the changes between population pyramids in 2007 and 2022 are that the fertility rate decreased from 2.16 to 1.62[5][6] and the life expectancy reached 78.3 years between 2018 and 2020 in Turkey.
[9] When looking at the right to health with respect to children, Turkey achieves 95.5% of what is expected based on its current income.
[9] In regards to the right to health amongst the adult population, the country achieves only 92.0% of what is expected based on the nation's level of income.
In 2003, the government introduced a comprehensive health reform program aimed at increasing the budget rate allocated to healthcare services and ensuring that a large part of the population is healthy.
[14] The Turkish Public Health Association is accountable for the primary healthcare delivery in Turkey.
[16] In 2010, Turkey was nearly on par with some of the other OECD countries such as South Korea and Hungary and had a lower maternal mortality ratio than the United States.
One of the risk factors that causes death and disability is a high body-mass index, which increased the DALYs (per 100.000) +453.9 between 2009 and 2019 in Turkey.
[25] Additionally, one of the determinants of obesity is urbanization in Turkey due to sedentary lifestyle in the cities, availability of public transportation, working more at office jobs, and changes in social and economic structure.
[29] In 2019, the Ministry of Health in Turkey extended the program and introduced the "Adult and Childhood Obesity Prevention and Physical Activity Action Plan (2019-2023).
[37] Coal is a major contributor to air pollution, and damages health across the nation, being burnt even in homes and cities.
Figures released by the (Ministry of Health) in June 2002 show that a total of 1,429 HIV / AIDS cases had been reported since 1985.
"[46] Due to problems in the registration and notification system, obtaining reliable numerical information about AIDS cases is very difficult in Turkey.
[51][52] The overwhelming majority of patients experience mild symptoms",[51] but some persons are in higher risk groups, such as those with asthma, diabetes,[53][54] obesity, heart disease, or who are pregnant or have a weakened immune system.
[55] In the rare severe cases, around 3–5 days after symptoms manifest, the sufferer's condition declines quickly, often to the point respiratory failure.
A U.S. citizen, flying from the United States via Amsterdam was found to be suffering from the swine flu after arriving at Istanbul's Atatürk International Airport.
[62] On 14 April 2020, the head of the Turkish Ministry of Health Fahrettin Koca announced that the spread of the virus in Turkey has reached its peak in the fourth week and started to slow down.
[66] On 18 April 2020, the total number of positive test results surpassed that of Iran, making it the highest in the Middle East.
[69] The rapid increase of the confirmed cases in Turkey did not overburden the public healthcare system,[70] and the preliminary case-fatality rate remained lower compared to many European countries.
[71][72] Discussions mainly attributed these to the country's relatively young population and high number of available intensive care units.
