Institutions that are not members of the "HealthTürkiye" platform will not be able to benefit from health tourism.
Stating that approximately 1.5 million health tourists preferred Türkiye last year, Ünver stated that Türkiye is among the top 5 countries in health tourism in various international studies.
Stating that health tourism covers different areas such as medical tourism, thermal tourism, disabled tourism, elderly tourism and healthy living, Ünver noted that approximately 100 billion dollars of value was created in medical tourism, 98 billion dollars in thermal tourism and 1.2 trillion dollars in healthy living tourism in the world.
Ünver said, "In 2024, the income from tourism was 60 billion dollars. The amount that a tourist leaves in the country was close to 1000 dollars. When we look at health tourism, there is 3 billion dollars of income and 1.5 million tourists."
SPECIAL TEAM AGAINST DISINFORMATIONPointing out that false information and disinformation about health tourism are spread from time to time, Ünver said that they have established a special team within USHAŞ on this issue.
Emphasizing that Türkiye was one of the few countries in the world that demonstrated the most successful management in the field of health during the pandemic period, Ünver said, "During this process, Türkiye's quality of health service was recognized worldwide."
Ünver stated that patients from 145 countries prefer Türkiye for organ transplantation, eye surgeries, oncology, in vitro fertilization, obesity surgery and dental treatments, and that the income per health tourist is around 2 thousand dollars.
Behlül Ünver reported that if the income is increased to 3-4 thousand dollars and the number of tourists is increased, the annual income target of 20 billion dollars can be achieved.
"HealthTürkiye MEMBERSHIP HAS BEEN MADE MANDATORY"Ünver, who stated that the HealthTürkiye platform was established to prevent both unregistered activities and to ensure reliable service delivery, said, "Citizens of 12 countries can track institutions while coming to Türkiye through the platform. In this way, awareness is raised in the fight against activities referred to as 'under the counter'."
Ünver, who pointed out that demand for Türkiye has increased due to the problems in the healthcare system in England, noted that people come not only for treatment but also for aesthetic, healthy living and tourism purposes.
Ünver stated that membership to the HealthTürkiye platform has been made mandatory for all institutions providing health tourism services, and added, "As of September 26, institutions that are not registered with the platform will not be able to conduct health tourism activities. These institutions will be considered unregistered and legal processes will be initiated. We will support the institutions we include in the HealthTürkiye platform in developing their fields of activity through contracts and will be with them in the process of turning them into a global brand."
On the other hand, Ünver stated that a new portal called USHAŞ Plus will be launched soon, and that this platform will contribute to the promotion and sales of domestic products abroad, and that a digital automation system will be established for the supply of medicines.
Ünver stated that USHAŞ acts as a guarantor in the international arena and added that they stand by institutions that provide health services.
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