If something goes wrong: how to complain about a clinic in Turkey

Start with the clinic's own complaint channel

Before you escalate anywhere, ask the clinic for its complaint procedure in writing. A facility that accepts international patients is required to inform you about the complaint procedures available to you, and it must give you a consent form in English or another language you understand. If you still have that paperwork, read it. It usually names an address or a contact point for complaints.

Facilities that provide health tourism services must also display call centre or contact details for health tourism matters on their websites, reachable 24 hours a day. That number is the first rung of the ladder. Use it, and keep a record of when you called and what was said.

You are also entitled to your own medical records, including copies. Request them in writing. Hospitals and clinics are required to give patients access to them. Having the file makes every later step easier, because you can describe what happened in specific terms rather than from memory.

What to prepare before you contact anyone

Whichever channel you use, the same pack of information makes the difference between a complaint that gets processed and one that stalls. Put it together first.

• Your full name, date of birth and contact details, including an email address you check.
• The clinic's full registered name and its address, exactly as it appears on your paperwork.
• The clinic's International Health Tourism Authorisation licence number, if you have it. You can find the clinic's record and licence number on this site, and there is a separate guide on how to verify a licence.
• Dates: admission, discharge, each appointment, each payment.
• Copies of the consent form, the treatment plan or quote, invoices, receipts, and any messages exchanged with the clinic.
• Your medical records from the clinic, and records from your doctor at home describing the problem.
• A short written summary, in chronological order, of what was promised and what happened. One page is enough.

If you are writing in English and the complaint will be handled in Turkish, keep sentences short and avoid idiom. Say what you want: a correction, a refund, an explanation, or a record of the harm. Vague complaints are hard to route.

The escalation ladder, in order

1. The clinic's own health tourism contact

This is the fastest route and the one most likely to produce a refund or a correction, because it stays inside the facility. Ask for a written response and a deadline. If nothing comes back, move on and note that you tried.

2. SABİM on 184

Inside Turkey, the Ministry of Health runs its complaints line, SABİM, on 184. It handles complaints about health services and patient rights. If you are calling from abroad and your Turkish is not enough, say so: when a caller uses 184 in a foreign language, translation is provided through a three-way conference call. Have your prepared summary in front of you, because the call is your chance to state the facts clearly.

3. The International Health Services Call Centre

The Ministry also runs an International Health Services Call Centre on 0090 850 288 38 38. It operates 24 hours a day in six languages and was set up with USHAŞ to serve international patients. This line exists specifically for people in your position, and it is often the easier first phone call if you are outside Turkey.

4. The Provincial Health Directorate

Every province has a Provincial Health Directorate (İl Sağlık Müdürlüğü), and each one contains a Health Tourism Unit that monitors health tourism matters in that province. Find the directorate for the province where you were treated and address your complaint there, in writing, with your evidence attached. This is the level that oversees the facility locally.

5. CİMER

CİMER, the Presidential Communication Centre, accepts written applications and complaints from the public. It is a general channel rather than a health-specific one, but it creates a formal, traceable record and can route a matter onward. Use it when the health-specific routes have not produced an answer.

6. The Ministry of Health, and then the courts

Complaints can also be made directly to the Ministry of Health. Beyond that, legal action is a separate route through the Turkish courts. That is a decision to take with a lawyer qualified in Turkey, not something this site can advise on. Time limits may apply, so if you are considering court action, get advice early rather than after the other steps.

If the problem is urgent or you are still in Turkey

112 is the emergency number in Turkey. If you are in the country and your condition is acute, call it. Do not wait for a complaint process to resolve a medical emergency.

What this site can and cannot do

healthturkey.co is not a law firm. It takes no fee from any clinic and cannot make a complaint on anyone's behalf. It publishes licence records; it does not grade care and makes no claim about the quality of treatment at any facility.

What the site does is show the licence and publish the document behind it. 4,403 facilities currently hold an International Health Tourism Authorisation, and each one's licence number and the Ministry's own PDF documents are published here. That is useful when you need to name the facility correctly in a complaint, or when you want to check what you were told.

Two cautions about the register. First, holding a licence means the facility is authorised for health tourism. It does not mean the care was good, and it does not mean your complaint is weaker or stronger. Second, if you cannot find a clinic on this site, that does not prove it is unlicensed. Absence can mean it is registered under a different name, or that the name is spelled differently. Check variations before drawing a conclusion.

If you spot an error in a record here — a wrong licence number, a misspelled name, a document that does not match — you can report a wrong record on this site. That helps the next person searching for the same facility.

A note on expectations

Complaint routes in any country move at their own speed, and cross-border cases involve two health systems and sometimes two languages. Keep copies of everything. Keep a dated log of every call and email. Ask for responses in writing. None of that guarantees an outcome, but it is what makes an outcome possible.