Turkey’s huge investments in the health sector have helped the country overcome the coronavirus outbreak sustaining minimal damage, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Saturday.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of Kartal City Hospital, Erdoğan said Turkey had not been short of medical supplies over the course of the epidemic, having also sent equipment to 138 countries to support their struggle against COVID-19.

"Coronavirus has shown us the significance of our health infrastructure. We turned away not a single patient. Furthermore, our health professionals have never been short of masks," he said.

The newly inaugurated Kartal City Hospital has a 1,105-bed capacity with the strength to treat 3,5 million patients to ambulatory care yearly. 100 million surgeries are expected to be carried out at the new facility annually.

The suburban city hospital project was greenlighted to significantly boost the country's hospital bed capacity and address a shortage of doctors. To ensure quality of service, the government has adopted a public-private partnership model for the construction and operation of a number of complexes. City hospitals are leased to private companies, with the government only paying fees for medical imaging, laboratories, security, maintenance and health workers' salaries.