Turkey’s public healthcare system is confronting a growing shortage of doctors, with more than 21,000 specialists having resigned from state hospitals over the past 13 years amid punishing workloads, low wages, rising violence in healthcare facilities and deteriorating conditions, Turkish Minute reported, citing the Birgün daily.
Figures compiled by the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) show that 1,759 specialists left public hospitals in the first 10 months of 2025 alone, nearly six departures a day. The total number of specialists who have quit the public system since 2012 now stands at 21,362.
TTB president Professor Alpay Azap said resignations now account for “around 10 percent” of the existing specialist workforce, warning that the exodus is eroding both the quality of medical services and the training of future doctors.
“Work intensity, low benefits, mobbing and violence are driving resignations,” he said.
In public hospitals, Azap noted, doctors have virtually no control over their workload or the time they spend with patients.
“Sometimes a doctor is forced to examine a patient in under five minutes. This destroys professional satisfaction,” he said, adding that many physicians flee not for substantially higher salaries in the private sector but for greater flexibility and the ability to practice medicine properly.
Azap warned that even if specialists who resigned returned to public hospitals, fundamental structural problems would remain unresolved.
The Health and Social Service Workers Union (SES) described the trend as unprecedented. Its representative, Kubilay Yalçınkaya, said six specialists resign from public hospitals every day — double the average before 2017. “The number of specialists leaving in the first 10 months of 2025 is far higher than the number entering through first-time appointments. Despite claims of reform, public hospitals are still not preferred,” he said.
Turkey’s doctor-to-population ratio underlines the scale of the crisis. The country has 204,000 physicians, or 239 doctors per 100,000 people — far below the EU average of 402 and the OECD average of 390.
The shortage has produced severe bottlenecks: long waits for critical surgeries, overcrowded emergency rooms and months-long delays in securing specialist appointments.
Doctors cite overwhelming workloads, bureaucratic pressure from the central appointment system (MHRS), frequent violence in hospitals, low pay in relation to the cost of living and a sense of professional devaluation. Physical attacks against healthcare workers occur almost daily, prompting thousands to seek accreditation abroad.
A growing number are leaving Turkey altogether. According to the TTB, 3,050 doctors emigrated in 2023, followed by 2,669 in 2024 and 2,400 in the first 11 months of 2025. Azap said some provinces have been left with only a single specialist — or none — in key areas such as oncology and pediatrics, forcing patients to travel long distances to receive care.
Tensions between the government and the medical community have heightened in recent years.
In March 2022 President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan drew widespread criticism when he dismissed doctors leaving the country for better opportunities, saying they were free to go and that Turkey would replace them.
After a fierce backlash he softened his tone, praising physicians’ efforts during the pandemic and saying Turkey “is always in need of its doctors and is indebted to them.”
Medical unions argue that conditions have not improved despite the rhetorical shift.
