Turkey’s health expenditure posted a year-on-year rise of 21.7 percent to reach 201.3 billion Turkish liras ($35.44 billion) in 2019, the country’s statistical office announced on Thursday.
“The proportion of current health expenditure to total health expenditure was 93.8 percent for 2018 and 93.4 percent for 2019,” the TurkStat said.
17.4-PERCENT-INCREASE WAS RECORDED COMPARED TO THE PREVIOUS YEAR
Health expenditure per capita reached 2,434 Turkish liras ($428.5) with an increase of 19.9 percent in 2019, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute.
The proportion of total health expenditure of the country’s GDP was 4.7 percent last year and it was 4.4 percent in 2018. “Out of pocket health expenditures made by households for treatment, pharmaceuticals etc. reached over 33.6 billion Turkish liras ($5.9 billion) with an increase of 17.4 percent in 2019 compared to the previous year”, it said.
“The ratio of household out of pocket health expenditure to total health expenditure was 16.7 percent in 2019,” TurkishStat added. The proportion of general government health expenditure to total health expenditure was 78 percent last year, up from 77.5 percent in 2018.
It also reported that 48.2 percent of health expenditure was spent for hospitals. This is followed by retail sale and other providers of medical goods with 25.8 percent, and providers of ambulatory healthcare with 11.9 percent.