The Ministry of Health (Turkish: Sağlık Bakanlığı) is the ministry of the Government of Turkey responsible for proposing and executing the government policy on health, planning and providing healthcare and protecting consumers. Likewise, it is responsible for proposing and executing the government policy on social cohesion and inclusion, family, protection of minors, youth and of care for dependent or disabled persons. The Ministry is headquartered in the Bakanlıklar in Ankara.
The Ministry of Health is headed by the Minister of Health, who is appointed by the President of Turkey at request of the Turkish Parliament. The current minister is Kemal Memişoğlu, serving since 2 July 2024.
Foundation of Ministry (1920–1946)
Continuity and organization of healthcare were a key focus in the Seljuk-Ottoman medical tradition. Following the foundation of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, the Ministry of Health was established on 3 May 1920. The main goal of this initial period was to heal the wounds of the war and to build the legislation rather than developing a regular registration system.
After the Republic was proclaimed, Dr. Refik Saydam held the ministerial office until 1937. Saydam contributed to the design and development of healthcare services in Turkey. In 1923, healthcare services were delivered at governmental and municipal facilities. The country had 86 hospitals and 6.437 patient beds back then.
During this period the Law on Practice of Medicine and Medical Sciences (1928) and the Law on Public Hygiene (1930) were adopted. These two and similar other laws are still in effect.
The health policies during this era had four main pillars:
Plan, design and implement healthcare centrally,
Organize preventive care at central level and curative care at local administrations,
Raise the appeal of medical faculties to citizens to increase the number of health workers and enforce mandatory service for medical faculty graduates,
Launch programs to fight against communicable diseases like malaria, syphilis, trachoma and leprosy.
Under these pillars, healthcare services were based on the "single-purpose care in broad geography - vertical organization" model. Legislation was developed to promote preventive care and local administrations were encouraged to open hospitals. The objective was to have a government physician in every district. Starting from densely populated settlements, diagnostic and treatment offices were opened in 150 district centers in 1924 and 20 more in 1936. The salaries of physicians providing preventive care were raised and they were forbidden to engage in private practice.
National Health Plan and Program (1946–1960)
The "First 10-Year National Health Plan", the first written health plan of Turkey, was adopted at the Supreme Health Council in 1946. The plan was announced by the Minister of Health Dr. Behçet Uz in 1946. It took nearly one and a half year for the National Health Plan to become a draft bill. It was approved by the Council of Ministers and at four different Parliamentary committees. However, the bill was not enacted because of the change of government.
Although the National Health Plan and the National Health Program were not entirely implemented in the form of a law, the two documents deeply influenced the healthcare organization around the country.
The basic approach was to centralize inpatient facilities that had been controlled by local administrations. The Plan aimed to expand healthcare to rural areas by establishing a 10-bed health center for every 40 villages. The care design of these facilities consisted of delivering preventive and curative services together. By design, each facility included two physicians, one health officer, one midwife, one visiting nurse and a village midwife and a health officer for every 10 villages. The number of the health centers was 8 in 1945, 181 in 1955 and 283 in 1960.
The Maternal and Child Health Section was established at the Ministry of Health in 1952. A Maternal and Child Health Development Center was established in Ankara in 1953 with assistance from UNICEF and World Health Organization. In this period, pro-natalist policies were adopted due to high rate of child and infection related mortalities. Therefore, Turkey continued to increase the number of health centers, maternity facilities and infection prevention centers and strengthened its corps of health professionals.
In 1954, the Minister of Health announced the "National Health Program and Health Bank Studies". Following on the First 10-Year National Health Plan, the Program provided the building blocks of healthcare planning and organization in Turkey. The National Health Plan split the country into seven health regions (i.e. Ankara, Balıkesir, Erzurum, Diyarbakır, İzmir, Samsun and Seyhan). On the other hand, the National Health Program divided the country into 16 health regions.