AN EVALUATION OF ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE SERVICES IN TÜRKİYE

Abstract

Access to health services is an important determinant of a society's health indicators and it consists of various dimensions. These dimensions consist of physical capacity, human resources and economic indicators. Therefore, this study aims to provide a general evaluation of access to healthcare services in Turkey comparing with OECD countries based on historical statistical data. In the research, it has been determined that many health indicators of Turkey have improved over the years. Despite improvements in the number of doctors, nurses and hospital beds, Turkey is still behind the OECD average in these indicators. Although the number of applications to physicians is above the OECD average, the fact that these applications occur with proportionally fewer physicians can be a problematic point. Although there have been improvements over the years in out-of-pocket payments and catastrophic health expenditures, it has been determined that there has been an increase in these indicators in recent years. As a result, there is still a need for improvement in many areas. Therefore, it is recommended that policymakers prioritize areas that are lagging behind in resource allocation.

Keywords

• Accessibility
• Healthcare Services
• Health Indicators
• Access to Healthcare

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