EVALUATION OF THE HEALTHCARE TRANSFORMATION PROGRAMME IN TURKEY AS A STRATEGY FOR BETTER HEALTH

Abstract

In November 2002 elections, when Justice and Development Party (AKP) came into power as a single party government, after several coalition governments in the country, it was the
beginning of a new term for Turkey. In 2002, health indicators of Turkey was far behind of the OECD countries, patient satisfaction was 39.5%, often news about holding patients hostage by hospital administrations because of unpaid healthcare service bills was taking place on the media. Thus, there were several problems in terms of accessibility and efficiency of health services in Turkey (TURSTAT, 2003; OECD, 2003; WHO, 2012). Under this circumstance, AKP declared its agenda and urgent action plan for healthcare in 2002, and the reform programme in 2003, naming Healthcare Transformation Programme (HTP). And the programme has been implementing by the Ministry of Health since 2003. The programme aims revolutionary changes in Turkish healthcare system and most of these changes have been successfully implemented.
In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the HTP regarding components of the programme based on the reports of Turkish Ministry of Health and international institutions, mainly OECD. Firstly, objectives of the HTP will be explained with the comparison of healthcare system before 2003 and today, and then selected  health indicators of the country in 2003 and 2013 will be handled for assessing the success of the programme.

Keywords

• Turkey,HTP,healthcare transformation,AKP

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