Group rents hospital funded by donation

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet

Türk Kalp Vakfı Hospital established in 1975 is comprised of two separate blocks. Hürriyet photo

The Türk Kalp Vakfı (Turkish Heart Foundation) Hospital, which has been providing services for 37 years thanks to donor funding, has been leased to Ekolab Şağlık İşletmeleri, under the umbrella of Istanbul’s Şafak Hospitals.

“We are also active in the cardiology field. Now we have rented out the management of one of Turkey’s most important hospitals, the Türk Kalp Vakfı [Hospital]. We will be managing it for the first time. We want to merge our own expertise with the foundation’s deep-rooted structure,” said an undisclosed source from Ekolab Sağlık İşletmeleri. No management fee will be paid for the hospital, but Ekolab will pay rent on the hospital building, the source said.

Şafak Hospitals, meanwhile, is only acting as a guarantor for Ekolab and has no interest in the Türk Kalp Vakfı Hospital, according Şafak Hospitals owner Şeçim Öztürk.

Türk Kalp Vakfı is expected to make an official announcement on the matter on Oct. 1.

The Türk Kalp Vakfı Hospital, established in 1975, is comprised of two blocks, one of which deals with general medicine, with the second block being a neurocardiology center. The neurocardiology center was the third such center in the world, after the establishment of similar facilities in the U.S. and Italy.

Ekolab Sağlık İşletmeleri was established in 2009 by two partners who invested 20,000 Turkish Liras in capital to get the hospital up and running.