Erdoğan pledges to make Türkiye global health care hub

ISTANBUL

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan speaks at the opening ceremony at Istanbul University’s hospital campus on Oct. 17, 2026.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Oct. 17 that Türkiye aims to become a global center for health care as he attended a groundbreaking and opening ceremony at Istanbul University’s hospital campus.

“We will make Türkiye a global center of attraction in health care,” Erdoğan said at the ceremony, adding that the country had become a destination for patients from around the world.

The president said Türkiye had made significant progress in expanding health care services through investments in public hospitals, city hospitals and private medical facilities.

He said two newly completed facilities — the Internal Medicine Hospital at Istanbul University’s Çapa campus and the Esenyurt Hospital — would be officially opened during the ceremony. Foundations were also laid for a new Orthopedics, Traumatology and Surgery-2 Hospital and the Deniz Abdal Mosque.

Reports from the event indicate that the Çapa hospital covers 44,000 square meters and offers a capacity of 186 beds, 39 of which are allocated to intensive care. Equipped with modern medical equipment, the center is tailored to advance medical training alongside patient treatment.

The Esenyurt Hospital has 200 patient beds and 50 intensive care beds, including neonatal intensive care capacity.

Erdoğan also announced that the government would launch a recruitment process for 38,000 non-physician health care workers before the end of 2026. The Health Ministry is expected to provide further details in the coming days.

The president thanked health care workers for their efforts to provide medical services across the country, saying investments in facilities and personnel would continue.

In a video message released earlier in the day, Erdoğan said Türkiye is opening a new chapter in its energy history with the deployment of the Osman Gazi floating production platform to the Black Sea.

“Today, we are opening a brand-new page in our energy history. We are sending Osman Gazi, essentially a floating industrial facility, off to its duty station in the Black Sea,” he said in a message sent to a ceremony marking the platform’s departure from Filyos port in Zonguldak.

“Osman Gazi is the first factory of the Blue Homeland, the maritime counterpart of our Century of Türkiye vision,” he said.

The president expressed his hope that the platform would provide beneficial services to the country and its people and wished success to the personnel who will work aboard it.

Equipped with 21 different units, the platform will process natural gas extracted from wells in the Sakarya Gas Field and transport it to Filyos through subsea pipelines.

“Natural gas production in the Black Sea will double to 20 million cubic meters per day, and starting in 2027, one in every three households will use our domestic natural gas,” he added.