Turkey to open doors to Pakistan for health tourism

Only Covid-19 negative patients to be allowed entry from May 20

ANKARA: Turkey will accept Covid-19 negative patients from Pakistan and 30 other countries from next week for treatment in the country as it loosens coronavirus restrictions.

A notification from the Turkish health ministry listed acceptance conditions for patients, including entry to the country, admission to hospital, treatment, discharge and isolation rules. It also noted the measures to be taken for the patients and their attendants.

The countries are Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Greece, Ukraine, Russia, Djibouti, Algeria, Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Somalia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, and the Turkish Cyprus.

Patients of orthopedics and traumatology, general surgery, pediatric surgery, urology, eye diseases, cardiology, cardiovascular surgery, surgical oncology, gynecologic oncology surgery, medical oncology, radiation oncology, brain and nerve surgery, hematology, intensive care, assisted-reproduction treatment applications, organ transplantation and bone marrow transplantation, will be accepted.

At the most, two attendants per patient will be allowed into the country from May 20. The patients and the attendants will go through Covid-19 PCR test or samples will be taken for the PCR test for a fee, when entering Turkey from the airports or border gates.

Only Covid-19 negative individuals will be accepted into the country. After entering Turkey, the patients and their attendants will be directly taken to the hospital where they have an appointment and they will not be accommodated anywhere else. One floor or corridor of the hospital will be allocated only for the patients coming from abroad.