Dubbed the best and biggest in Europe, a burn center at Başakşehir Pine and Sakura City Hospital in Istanbul helped many patients recover in the six months since its inauguration, both from Türkiye and abroad. The center has catered to patients from about 25 countries since March 22. Its advanced infrastructure and top-notch health care services make it a primary choice in health tourism.
Professor Mustafa Turan, the physician in charge of the center, said they most recently took in seven patients who were injured in a major explosion in Libya and were still under treatment. "We received patients from Morocco, the Ivory Coast, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Bulgaria. Our center provides quality service. Burn cases sometimes involve a high rate of germ infection. Our clinic here has a negative pressure feature that sucks the air in the room and filters it before emitting it outside. You can also adjust the humidity rate in the room. The burn center has two surgery rooms. Its physical features are the best, for protection against germs, for hygiene. It is the best center in Europe both in terms of infrastructure and in terms of size," he says.
Turan says burn treatment is expensive elsewhere due to the high cost of maintaining hygiene levels and daily dressing of wounds. "Here, the state gives us immediate access to supplies of artificial tissue, stem cells and so on, while medical facilities in most European countries shun using them due to the costs. When they are used, people are charged a lot. Their costs are up to seven times higher than our costs here," he said.
Turkey has come to the forefront in medical tourism with its competitive prices and successful operation rates, on top of its rich heritage as a cultural destination for tourists. It provides medical services to around 1.2 million tourists that come from Europe. Foreign tourists who come to Türkiye most commonly opt for aesthetic surgeries, hair transplantations, heart surgery, orthopedics, oncology, dental work and in vitro fertilization.