Legal Responsibility of Doctors, Clinics and Hospitals in Turkey

When medical treatment in Turkey produces a serious complication or permanent injury, one of the first questions asked by foreign patients is:

Who is legally responsible?

Is it the surgeon?

Is it the private hospital?

Is it the clinic that sold the treatment?

Is it the medical tourism company that arranged the procedure?

Can more than one person or company be responsible at the same time?

The answer can be complicated because modern healthcare is rarely provided by one person acting alone.

A foreign patient travelling to Turkey for surgery may communicate with a sales coordinator, sign documents issued by a clinic, make payment to a medical tourism company, undergo surgery at a private hospital and be treated by a doctor who works under a separate contractual arrangement.

If something goes wrong, identifying the correct defendant can therefore become almost as important as establishing the medical error itself.

Turkish law recognises different forms of responsibility for:

• the doctor who performs the medical intervention;
• the hospital or clinic providing the healthcare service;
• the organisation responsible for hospital systems, staffing and patient safety;
• and, depending on its role, a medical tourism intermediary.

Public hospitals operate under a different liability system from private healthcare providers.

Purely aesthetic procedures can also create a different contractual structure from ordinary therapeutic medicine.

For foreign patients, the key principle is that medical malpractice should not automatically be reduced to the question:

“Did the surgeon personally make a technical mistake?”

A malpractice case may also concern:

• failure to diagnose;
• delayed intervention;
• poor postoperative monitoring;
• inadequate staffing;
• defective hospital organisation;
• failure to transfer a patient;
• infection-control failures;
• lack of informed consent;
• inadequate record keeping;
• failure to manage a known complication.

Recent Turkish Court of Cassation decisions demonstrate that hospitals can face responsibility for organisational failures independently of a narrow allegation concerning surgical technique.

This article explains how Turkish law approaches the legal responsibility of doctors, clinics and hospitals and what foreign patients should investigate when medical treatment goes wrong.

The Doctor’s Legal Responsibility in Turkey

A doctor is not automatically responsible every time treatment fails.

This distinction is fundamental.

In ordinary therapeutic medicine, Turkish Court of Cassation jurisprudence generally treats the physician’s obligation as one requiring professional care rather than guaranteeing a cure.

The physician must act according to accepted medical standards and exercise the level of care expected from a competent medical professional.

A doctor may therefore perform an operation correctly and still face an unavoidable complication.

That does not automatically constitute malpractice.

However, the Court of Cassation takes the physician’s duty of care seriously.

In a recent private-hospital malpractice decision, the 3rd Civil Chamber emphasised that medical professionals must exercise careful professional conduct, identify the patient’s condition in a timely manner, take appropriate precautions and provide necessary treatment without delay. It further stated that even relatively minor professional fault can be relevant in assessing liability within the applicable medical-treatment relationship.

Accordingly, doctor liability can arise from much more than a dramatic surgical error.

What Types of Conduct Can Create Doctor Liability?

Depending on the circumstances, medical liability may arise from:

• incorrect diagnosis;
• failure to order necessary tests;
• delayed diagnosis;
• performing an unnecessary procedure;
• choosing an inappropriate treatment;
• technical error during surgery;
• failure to recognise a complication;
• delayed complication management;
• inadequate postoperative follow-up;
• premature discharge;
• failure to refer the patient to an appropriate specialist;
• failure to explain material risks;
• performing a procedure without valid consent.

The relevant standard is normally assessed through expert medical evidence.

The fact that another doctor would have chosen a different technique does not automatically prove malpractice.

The central question is generally whether the defendant’s conduct fell below professionally acceptable medical standards and whether that failure caused the patient’s injury.

A Bad Medical Result Is Not Automatically Medical Malpractice

Suppose a patient undergoes medically necessary surgery.

The operation is properly indicated.

The surgeon follows accepted technique.

A recognised complication nevertheless develops.

The complication is detected promptly and managed appropriately.

In this situation, the patient may unfortunately have suffered significant injury without the doctor necessarily being legally negligent.

This is the difference between complication and malpractice.

A complication is a recognised adverse event that may occur despite appropriate medical care.

Malpractice involves a legally relevant failure to comply with medical or other professional obligations.

However, saying:

“It was a complication”

does not automatically end the legal analysis.

The next questions should be:

Was this genuinely a recognised complication?

Was the patient informed about it?

Were reasonable precautions taken?

Was the complication recognised quickly enough?

Was the complication treated properly?

Did a delay make the injury worse?

A preventable failure in complication management can create responsibility even where the original complication itself was unavoidable.

The Doctor’s Duty Does Not End When the Operation Ends

Medical responsibility is not limited to what happens inside the operating room.

Postoperative care may be just as important.

A patient may undergo technically correct surgery but then suffer serious damage because warning signs were ignored.

For example:

A patient develops fever, severe pain and falling blood pressure.

The hospital staff repeatedly say recovery is normal.

Imaging is delayed.

A serious internal complication is discovered many hours later.

In such a case, the legal issue may concern postoperative monitoring and delayed intervention rather than the technical performance of the original surgery.

Turkish Court of Cassation case law emphasises the need for doctors and hospitals to investigate medical uncertainty and take protective measures where the patient’s condition creates reasonable concern.

Informed Consent Is an Independent Source of Legal Responsibility

One of the most important mistakes in medical malpractice analysis is assuming:

“The operation was technically correct, therefore there can be no liability.”

That is not always true.

A patient has a separate right to make an informed decision about medical treatment.

The current Patient Rights Regulation requires the patient to receive information concerning matters including:

• the nature and course of the disease;
• who will perform the intervention;
• where and how it will be performed;
• alternative diagnostic and treatment methods;
• benefits and risks of alternatives;
• possible complications;
• important characteristics of medicines;
• consequences associated with rejecting treatment.

The information must be provided in a manner the patient can understand. Current rules also contemplate the use of an interpreter where necessary and require the medical professional responsible for the intervention—or another appropriately qualified professional where circumstances require—to provide the relevant explanation.

This is particularly important for foreign patients.

A Signed Consent Form Does Not Automatically Eliminate Liability

A patient may sign several documents before surgery.

That does not necessarily prove legally sufficient informed consent.

The Turkish Constitutional Court’s Ahmet Acartürk decision is particularly significant.

The Court held that meaningful participation in medical decision-making and access to information about medical risks form part of the constitutional protection of bodily and moral integrity.

It also emphasised that the burden of demonstrating informed consent to the particular medical intervention lies with the doctor or hospital.

Accordingly, a generic consent form may be insufficient where it does not establish that the patient was informed about the actual procedure and material risks.

For a foreign patient, relevant questions may include:

Did the patient understand Turkish?

Was an interpreter used?

Was the document procedure-specific?

Were important complications explained?

When was the form signed?

Was the patient given a meaningful opportunity to decide?

Technical medical correctness and informed consent should therefore be examined separately.

What Is the Legal Responsibility of a Private Hospital?

A private hospital is not merely a building in which independent doctors happen to operate.

The hospital itself provides an organised healthcare service.

Current Turkish regulations impose extensive institutional responsibilities concerning:

• staffing;
• medical units;
• equipment;
• continuous healthcare provision;
• medical records;
• sterilisation;
• infection prevention;
• coordination;
• hospital quality standards.

The current Private Hospitals Regulation, issued in 2025, expressly requires private hospitals to provide continuous and regular healthcare according to specified service, infrastructure, equipment and staffing standards.

The hospital’s medical, administrative and technical services must also operate under a responsible medical director, whose statutory duties include maintaining service-quality standards, ensuring correct medical records, coordinating hospital units, maintaining continuous services and taking measures concerning sterilisation and hospital infections.

These regulatory responsibilities help explain why hospital liability cannot always be avoided by saying:

“The doctor performed the operation, not the hospital.”

Hospital Organisational Fault Can Create Liability

One of the most important categories of hospital responsibility is organisational fault.

The individual surgeon may have acted appropriately, yet the hospital system may still have failed the patient.

Examples may include:

• inadequate staffing;
• failure to have appropriate specialists available;
• defective emergency procedures;
• failure to transfer the patient;
• lack of necessary equipment;
• poor coordination between departments;
• inadequate postoperative monitoring;
• inadequate nursing organisation;
• record-keeping failures;
• infection-control failures.

The Court of Cassation’s 22 October 2025 decision, 3rd Civil Chamber E. 2025/1321, K. 2025/5054, is an important contemporary example.

The dispute specifically concerned alleged organisational fault of a private hospital. The Court emphasised the duties of the healthcare provider to take necessary medical precautions and required proper examination of allegations relating to patient transfer and hospital organisation.

This shows that malpractice litigation should not always focus exclusively on the individual physician.

Example: Correct Doctor, Defective Hospital System

Consider the following scenario.

A patient develops a severe cardiac complication after surgery.

The surgeon recognises the problem correctly.

However, the private hospital does not have the necessary specialist coverage.

No timely transfer is organised.

Several hours pass before the patient reaches another facility.

Permanent injury occurs.

The surgeon’s original diagnosis may have been correct.

Nevertheless, the hospital’s organisational failure may become the central legal issue.

This type of case illustrates why the patient should investigate both:

individual medical conduct, and

institutional healthcare organisation.

Hospital Responsibility for Medical Records

Medical records are not simply administrative paperwork.

They are part of proper healthcare organisation and can become crucial evidence in malpractice litigation.

The current Private Hospitals Regulation places responsibility on hospital management to establish a medical record and archive system and ensure that records are kept properly and accurately.

The Patient Rights Regulation separately gives the patient a right to inspect health-related files and records and obtain copies directly or through an authorised or legal representative.

Therefore, where a hospital claims that:

• the operative report does not exist;
• nursing observations were lost;
• vital signs were not recorded;
• consent documentation cannot be found,

the problem may become legally significant.

Incomplete records can affect both regulatory compliance and the evidential assessment of malpractice.

Hospital Responsibility for Infection Control

Hospital-acquired infection does not automatically prove negligence.

Infection is a recognised risk of many medical procedures.

However, the hospital has institutional responsibilities concerning infection prevention.

The current Private Hospitals Regulation expressly places duties on hospital management to ensure appropriate sterilisation and disinfection processes and to take necessary measures against hospital infections.

Consequently, a serious postoperative infection may require examination of:

• sterilisation records;
• infection-control protocols;
• antibiotic management;
• operating-room procedures;
• nursing records;
• timing of diagnosis and treatment.

The correct question is not merely:

“Did an infection occur?”

It is:

“Did the hospital take the precautions and treatment steps reasonably required?”

Can Both the Doctor and Private Hospital Be Responsible?

Potentially, yes.

The patient should not assume that only one defendant must be selected.

Depending on the contractual structure and alleged malpractice, proceedings can involve both the healthcare professional and the private hospital operator.

Recent Court of Cassation aesthetic-treatment cases provide clear examples of proceedings involving both the treating doctor and hospital.

In Yargıtay 6th Civil Chamber E. 2024/1507, K. 2025/1137, the claimant brought proceedings concerning an aesthetic eyelid operation in which the defendants included both the physician and healthcare facility. The Court treated the aesthetic intervention as a contract for work and stressed the result-oriented obligations arising from that relationship.

Whether each defendant is ultimately liable—and on what basis—must be determined according to the particular case.

But the existence of one potentially responsible party does not automatically remove the responsibility of another.

What Is the Responsibility of a Private Clinic or Medical Centre?

The word “clinic” can be legally misleading.

Patients often use “clinic” to describe almost any medical business found through Instagram or Google.

But the commercial brand the patient sees online may not be the legal healthcare provider.

For example:

The website may use the name Beautiful Turkey Clinic.

The invoice may be issued by a different company.

The surgery may take place at a separately licensed hospital.

The treating physician may operate under another contractual arrangement.

A medical tourism intermediary may have collected the payment.

Before bringing a claim, the patient should therefore establish:

• the exact legal entity;
• healthcare licence;
• identity of the doctor;
• place where treatment occurred;
• party receiving payment;
• party issuing the invoice;
• party that actually promised the treatment.

A private medical centre or clinic can potentially bear its own responsibility for the healthcare services and organisational duties it undertakes.

It should not automatically be treated as legally identical to either the surgeon or the hospital where surgery physically occurred.

Advertising and Promises Made by the Clinic Can Matter

Many foreign patients select treatment based on online representations.

A clinic may say:

“Your operation will be performed personally by Professor X.”

“You will receive 5,000 grafts.”

“The procedure guarantees a natural result.”

“All complications will be corrected free of charge.”

These representations can become relevant to the contractual and consumer-law analysis.

A patient should preserve:

• website pages;
• advertisements;
• WhatsApp communications;
• treatment quotations;
• written package descriptions.

The legal responsibility of the clinic may extend beyond the technical medical act if the dispute also involves misrepresentation, incomplete services or breach of what was promised.

Aesthetic Surgery Has a Different Liability Structure

Purely aesthetic interventions occupy a particularly important position in Turkish Court of Cassation jurisprudence.

Ordinary therapeutic medicine generally involves an obligation of professional care.

Purely aesthetic procedures, by contrast, can be classified as contracts for work — eser sözleşmesi, involving a stronger result-oriented obligation.

The Court of Cassation has repeatedly confirmed this approach.

In its 19 March 2025 decision, E. 2024/1507, K. 2025/1137, the 6th Civil Chamber held that an aesthetic eyelid procedure was a contract for work and emphasised that the provider undertakes the agreed aesthetic result in addition to professional care.

Likewise, in E. 2024/3670, K. 2025/3903, dated 17 November 2025, the Court reaffirmed that aesthetic surgical interventions differ from ordinary therapeutic treatment because of the agreed result obligation.

Why This Matters for Doctor and Hospital Responsibility

In ordinary medicine, the healthcare provider does not generally promise:

“You will definitely recover.”

In result-oriented aesthetic treatment, however, the legal analysis can include whether the agreed cosmetic result was actually delivered.

This means that a clinic or doctor cannot necessarily defeat every aesthetic claim merely by showing:

“There was no technical surgical error.”

The court may also examine:

• the promised result;
• whether the outcome is legally defective;
• whether the patient obtained the expected benefit;
• whether correction is necessary.

The Court of Cassation has expressly criticised decisions that analyse an aesthetic case solely as a medical complication without properly addressing the result-oriented contractual relationship.

A Recognised Complication Does Not Necessarily End an Aesthetic Claim

This is particularly important.

Suppose scarring or asymmetry is medically recognised as a possible complication.

In ordinary therapeutic medicine, that fact may strongly support the healthcare provider where adequate consent and proper complication management are established.

But in aesthetic cases, the court may also need to ask whether the agreed aesthetic result was delivered.

Recent Court of Cassation decisions emphasise this additional contractual dimension.

In a May 2025 aesthetic-surgery case, the 6th Civil Chamber also required broader assessment of treatment expenses arising from postoperative problems, including submitted rehabilitation and psychological-treatment expenses, rather than limiting recovery to a narrow corrective procedure.

Medical Tourism Companies and Intermediaries

Foreign patients frequently interact with a medical tourism intermediary rather than the hospital directly.

The intermediary may:

• advertise the treatment;
• communicate with the patient;
• arrange the hospital;
• organise transportation;
• provide interpreters;
• coordinate accommodation;
• collect part of the payment.

Turkey’s current International Health Tourism and Tourist Health Regulation, effective from 26 April 2025, regulates international health tourism healthcare providers and intermediary organisations and requires relevant providers to operate within the applicable authorisation and service framework.

The Regulation creates a more structured distinction between:

healthcare services, and

intermediary services.

This distinction matters when liability arises.

Is a Medical Tourism Agency Automatically Responsible for Surgical Malpractice?

Not automatically.

A medical tourism intermediary and a surgeon do not necessarily perform the same legal obligations.

If an agency merely provides:

• airport transfer;
• accommodation;
• interpretation;
• logistical coordination,

its responsibility should normally be analysed according to the services it actually undertook.

However, the situation may be different where the intermediary:

• selected the medical provider;
• made substantive medical promises;
• presented itself as the treatment provider;
• controlled important elements of the patient pathway;
• supplied misleading information.

The 2025 international health-tourism framework expressly regulates both healthcare facilities and intermediary organisations and imposes service-specific regulatory obligations on them.

Therefore, an intermediary cannot automatically avoid every form of responsibility simply by writing:

“We are only an agency.”

Its actual role must be investigated.

Identify Who Received the Patient’s Money

Payment records are particularly useful when multiple companies are involved.

A patient should preserve:

• bank transfer receipts;
• credit-card statements;
• invoices;
• deposit confirmations;
• payment links.

These may establish that:

one company advertised the treatment,

another received payment,

a third issued the hospital invoice,

and an individual doctor performed the surgery.

The correct defendants cannot be identified reliably without understanding this structure.

Responsibility for Foreign-Patient Communication

Language can itself become a medical-safety issue.

The Patient Rights Regulation requires medical information to be understandable and expressly contemplates the use of an interpreter where necessary.

For a foreign patient, inadequate communication can affect:

• informed consent;
• postoperative instructions;
• medication use;
• recognition of warning symptoms;
• follow-up care.

Suppose a patient repeatedly tells a clinic coordinator in English:

“I have a fever of 39°C and severe abdominal pain.”

The coordinator incorrectly says:

“This is completely normal; do not seek emergency care.”

The legal analysis may need to identify:

• who gave the instruction;
• whether that person was medically qualified;
• whether the message was communicated to the treating physician;
• whether the healthcare provider had an appropriate international-patient communication system.

This can become both an individual and organisational liability issue.

Public Hospital Doctors Are Subject to a Different Compensation System

The liability structure changes substantially when malpractice occurs within a public hospital.

Turkey’s Constitution contains a specific rule concerning damage caused by public officials while exercising their authority.

Article 129 provides that compensation claims arising from faults committed by public officials in exercising their powers are brought against the administration, subject to recourse against the responsible official. The Constitutional Court has repeatedly confirmed this structure.

Accordingly, a foreign patient alleging medical malpractice at a state hospital will generally not pursue the ordinary private Consumer Court model against the public physician.

The principal compensation claim is generally pursued against the responsible administration within administrative jurisdiction.

This does not mean the public doctor has no legal responsibility at all.

Criminal, disciplinary and recourse consequences can remain separate issues.

But the patient’s compensation route must be correctly classified.

Public Hospital Liability Usually Concerns “Service Fault”

A state hospital provides a public healthcare service.

Liability can therefore arise from deficiencies in how that service was:

• organised;
• delivered;
• staffed;
• supervised.

The issue may concern an individual medical error, but it can also involve broader service failure.

Examples include:

• delayed emergency treatment;
• inadequate hospital systems;
• failure to provide necessary medical resources;
• poor coordination;
• negligent monitoring.

Where compensable public-service fault is established, the relevant administration can be responsible for the resulting damage.

The Turkish constitutional system deliberately directs claims concerning public officials’ duty-related faults toward the administration, which can later seek recourse from the responsible official under the applicable conditions.

Criminal Responsibility Is Separate From Compensation Liability

A serious malpractice event can potentially have both civil or administrative consequences and criminal consequences.

For example, negligent conduct causing serious bodily injury or death may trigger a criminal investigation.

However:

a compensation claim and a criminal prosecution are not the same proceeding.

A private patient may pursue compensation through the consumer/private-law system while the prosecutor separately investigates possible criminal negligence.

A public-hospital patient may pursue compensation against the administration while criminal responsibility of individual healthcare professionals is examined through the relevant criminal-law framework.

The outcome of one proceeding may be relevant to the other, but the remedies and legal tests are not identical.

Disciplinary and Regulatory Responsibility Is Also Separate

Doctors, hospitals and clinics operate within professional and healthcare regulatory systems.

An incident can therefore potentially produce:

• compensation liability;
• criminal investigation;
• professional disciplinary consequences;
• Ministry of Health regulatory proceedings.

A successful regulatory complaint does not automatically produce financial compensation for the patient.

Likewise, a compensation case does not automatically mean the doctor’s professional licence will be affected.

Each route has a different purpose.

Who Should a Foreign Patient Sue?

There is no universal answer.

A proper defendant analysis should ask:

Who performed the treatment?

Which company operated the hospital?

Who employed or engaged the medical team?

Who sold the treatment package?

Who received payment?

Who made the promises?

Who was responsible for postoperative follow-up?

Did a medical tourism intermediary participate?

In some cases, the primary claim may be against the doctor and hospital.

In another, the clinic company may be central.

In another, organisational fault of the hospital may be more important than the individual physician’s conduct.

The claim should be structured according to actual legal responsibility, not brand names.

Can a Hospital Avoid Liability by Saying the Doctor Is “Independent”?

Not necessarily.

The legal effect of the doctor’s contractual status must be examined, but a hospital can have its own independent obligations toward the patient.

These may include:

• safe organisation;
• sufficient staffing;
• appropriate facilities;
• record keeping;
• infection control;
• nursing systems;
• emergency response;
• coordination.

The Court of Cassation’s recent organisational-fault case demonstrates why the hospital’s own conduct must be examined separately from the physician’s technical treatment.

Therefore:

“The surgeon was independent”

does not automatically answer a claim concerning the hospital’s own organisational failure.

What Damages Can Be Claimed?

Where liability is established, the patient may potentially claim compensation for qualifying losses caused by the malpractice.

Depending on the facts, these can include:

• corrective treatment expenses;
• future medical expenses;
• rehabilitation;
• medication;
• past loss of earnings;
• reduced future earning capacity;
• impairment of economic prospects;
• appropriate non-material damages.

In fatal malpractice cases, qualifying claims may also include:

• funeral expenses;
• treatment costs before death;
• loss of financial support;
• moral damages for close relatives.

The existence and amount of each category must be proven.

Foreign Corrective Treatment Can Be Relevant

A foreign patient does not lose a compensation claim merely because corrective treatment takes place outside Turkey.

For example:

A British patient receives revision surgery in London.

A German dental patient has implants removed in Berlin.

A French patient undergoes reconstructive surgery in Paris.

Those foreign medical records can become important evidence concerning:

• the nature of the original defect;
• necessity of revision;
• causation;
• treatment expenses.

The patient should preserve the full medical report as well as invoices and proof of payment.

What Evidence Is Important in Determining Responsibility?

A strong liability investigation should preserve evidence concerning each potentially responsible party.

Important documents may include:

• treatment contract;
• hospital admission documents;
• operative report;
• anaesthesia records;
• consent forms;
• medical records;
• nursing observations;
• laboratory results;
• scans;
• postoperative instructions;
• WhatsApp messages;
• advertisements;
• package descriptions;
• invoices;
• payment receipts;
• foreign corrective-treatment reports.

The objective is to determine:

who did what,

who was responsible for doing it,

and

how the failure caused the patient’s injury.

A Practical Example: Surgeon Error

A foreign patient undergoes spinal surgery.

The surgeon negligently damages a nerve through a technical error inconsistent with accepted medical practice.

Permanent disability results.

The doctor may face direct responsibility for negligent medical performance.

Depending on the private healthcare relationship, the hospital’s responsibility may also need assessment.

Example: Hospital Organisational Fault

A patient suffers serious postoperative bleeding.

The treating doctor orders emergency imaging.

The hospital fails to organise the test for several hours because appropriate staff are unavailable.

Permanent injury results from delay.

This may raise institutional hospital responsibility even if the doctor’s initial medical decision was appropriate.

Example: Defective Informed Consent

A British patient undergoes elective surgery.

The operation is technically correct.

A serious recognised complication occurs.

The patient was given only a Turkish-language generic form and was never meaningfully informed about that complication.

Technical malpractice may be difficult to establish.

Nevertheless, informed-consent liability requires a separate analysis under patient-rights rules and Constitutional Court jurisprudence.

Example: Failed Cosmetic Surgery

A patient receives purely aesthetic eyelid surgery.

The final result includes substantial asymmetry and visible scars.

Experts say these can medically occur as complications.

However, the Court of Cassation’s current aesthetic-treatment approach requires consideration of the result-oriented works-contract obligations, not merely whether a recognised complication existed.

The liability analysis is therefore different from ordinary therapeutic medicine.

Example: Medical Tourism Intermediary

A patient is told by a medical tourism company:

“Professor X will personally perform your surgery.”

The patient pays the company.

On the day of surgery, a different physician performs the operation.

The patient later suffers injury.

The legal analysis should examine not only medical negligence but also:

• who made the representation;
• what the intermediary contract promised;
• whether the intermediary was properly authorised;
• which company received payment;
• the relationship between the intermediary and healthcare facility.

The 2025 international health-tourism framework makes the precise role of each provider increasingly important.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is responsible for medical malpractice in Turkey?

Depending on the case, responsibility may involve the treating doctor, private hospital or clinic, healthcare operator and potentially another provider involved in the patient’s medical-tourism pathway. Public hospitals follow a different administrative-liability system.

Is the doctor automatically responsible if treatment fails?

No. Ordinary therapeutic medicine generally requires professional care rather than a guaranteed cure. Liability normally requires a relevant breach of medical or legal obligations.

Can a doctor be responsible for a complication?

A complication itself is not automatically malpractice. Responsibility may nevertheless arise if reasonable precautions were not taken, the patient was not properly informed or the complication was negligently managed.

Can a private hospital be responsible even if the surgeon did not make a mistake?

Potentially, yes. A hospital may have independent organisational responsibilities concerning staffing, equipment, emergency response, patient transfer, record keeping, infection control and coordination. Recent Court of Cassation jurisprudence expressly addresses private-hospital organisational fault.

Can I sue both the hospital and doctor?

Potentially, depending on the legal relationship and alleged breaches. Recent Turkish aesthetic-treatment proceedings include claims involving both doctors and healthcare facilities.

Is a clinic legally responsible for what it advertises?

Potentially. Contractual and consumer-law analysis may take into account promises made about the treatment, doctor, procedure or result. The precise legal entity making the representation should be identified.

Is medical tourism agency responsibility the same as hospital responsibility?

No. Their obligations can differ according to the services undertaken. The 2025 international health-tourism framework separately regulates healthcare facilities and intermediary organisations.

Can a medical tourism company say it is “only an intermediary”?

That description is not necessarily decisive. Its actual services, representations, payments and role in organising the treatment should be investigated.

Is a Turkish consent form enough for a foreign patient?

Not necessarily. The patient must receive information in an understandable form. The Patient Rights Regulation specifically requires comprehensible information and contemplates interpretation where necessary.

Who has to prove informed consent?

The Constitutional Court has stated that the burden of demonstrating informed consent for the particular intervention lies with the doctor or hospital.

Is cosmetic surgery treated differently?

Often, yes. Court of Cassation jurisprudence treats purely aesthetic result-oriented interventions as contracts for work, creating obligations concerning the agreed result in addition to professional care.

Can a private hospital be liable for infection?

Potentially where there was a relevant failure concerning infection prevention or treatment. Current private-hospital regulation imposes responsibilities relating to sterilisation, disinfection and hospital infection precautions.

Can a hospital be responsible for missing medical records?

Record keeping forms part of institutional healthcare obligations. The current Private Hospitals Regulation requires an appropriate medical record and archive system and accurate record keeping.

Who is sued for malpractice in a state hospital?

For duty-related faults of public healthcare professionals, the Turkish constitutional framework generally requires the compensation claim to be directed against the administration, subject to recourse against the responsible official.

Can the public doctor still face criminal responsibility?

Potentially. Compensation liability, criminal responsibility and disciplinary responsibility are separate legal questions.

Can foreign patients sue Turkish healthcare providers?

Potentially, yes. Foreign nationality does not itself eliminate malpractice rights arising from treatment received in Turkey.

Conclusion: Medical Malpractice Liability in Turkey Can Extend Beyond the Individual Doctor

When medical treatment goes wrong in Turkey, determining responsibility requires more than asking who held the surgical instrument.

Modern healthcare is an organised service.

The doctor is responsible for professional medical conduct.

But the hospital can have separate duties relating to:

staffing,

facilities,

patient monitoring,

medical records,

infection prevention,

emergency procedures,

transfer,

and

coordination.

Current Turkish private-hospital regulation reflects this institutional structure. Private hospitals must meet healthcare, staffing, equipment and organisational standards, while hospital management has specific responsibilities regarding medical records, continuous healthcare services, sterilisation and infection prevention.

Recent Court of Cassation jurisprudence also confirms that hospital responsibility is not limited to technical surgical mistakes.

In Yargıtay 3rd Civil Chamber E. 2025/1321, K. 2025/5054, the dispute concerned a private hospital’s alleged organisational fault. The Court emphasised the healthcare provider’s duty to act carefully, identify the patient’s condition without delay, take necessary precautions and properly assess issues concerning the organisation and transfer of medical care.

This is particularly important for international patients.

A foreign patient may communicate with one company, pay another company and receive surgery at a third healthcare entity.

The treating doctor, private hospital, clinic brand and medical tourism intermediary should therefore be identified separately.

Turkey’s International Health Tourism and Tourist Health Regulation, effective from 26 April 2025, now provides a more detailed regulatory framework for healthcare facilities and intermediary organisations providing international health-tourism services.

The intermediary’s responsibility should nevertheless be distinguished from the medical responsibility of the healthcare provider.

An agency arranging transportation is not automatically the surgeon.

But an intermediary that makes treatment promises, controls critical communication or undertakes broader obligations cannot necessarily avoid analysis simply by describing itself as “only an intermediary.”

The doctor’s responsibility must also be separated into several legal duties.

A doctor can potentially be responsible for:

diagnostic error,

inappropriate treatment,

technical negligence,

delayed intervention,

poor complication management,

and

lack of informed consent.

The last category deserves particular attention.

The Patient Rights Regulation requires detailed information concerning the intervention, alternatives and possible complications, and the information must be presented in a manner the patient can understand.

For foreign patients, language is therefore not a minor administrative matter.

A Turkish-language signature should not automatically be treated as proof that an English, German, French or Arabic-speaking patient made a genuinely informed decision.

The Constitutional Court’s Ahmet Acartürk judgment reinforces this protection. It recognised meaningful medical information and patient participation as part of constitutional bodily-autonomy protections and confirmed that the burden of proving informed consent for the particular procedure lies with the doctor or hospital.

Aesthetic treatment introduces another major distinction.

In ordinary therapeutic treatment, the physician generally undertakes careful medical performance rather than guaranteed cure.

Purely aesthetic procedures can be different.

Recent Court of Cassation decisions repeatedly classify result-oriented aesthetic interventions as contracts for work.

In E. 2024/1507, K. 2025/1137, the 6th Civil Chamber stressed that the aesthetic doctor and healthcare provider were required to consider the promised result, not merely whether the negative outcome could medically be called a complication.

The Court reaffirmed the result-oriented nature of aesthetic treatment in E. 2024/3670, K. 2025/3903, dated 17 November 2025.

Accordingly, the question:

“Was there malpractice?”

may not be sufficient in cosmetic cases.

The court may also need to ask:

“Was the agreed aesthetic result delivered?”

Public hospitals require another completely different analysis.

Turkey’s Constitution establishes that compensation claims arising from public officials’ faults while exercising public authority are generally brought against the administration rather than directly against the individual official, without removing the administration’s ability and obligation to pursue recourse where appropriate.

A foreign patient treated at a state hospital should therefore not automatically file the same type of lawsuit that would be filed against a private clinic.

Public healthcare malpractice generally requires the administrative-law compensation route.

Finally, determining who can be sued requires evidence.

Foreign patients should preserve:

the medical contract,

hospital records,

operative reports,

consent documents,

WhatsApp correspondence,

advertising,

invoices,

payment records,

before-and-after photographs,

and

foreign corrective-treatment records.

These documents help answer the fundamental liability questions:

Who provided the treatment?

Who promised what?

Who received the money?

Who controlled the healthcare process?

Where did the failure occur?

And whose conduct caused the injury?

For serious malpractice cases, responsibility can therefore be multi-layered.

The doctor may be responsible for negligent treatment.

The hospital may be responsible for organisational failures.

The clinic may be responsible for contractual services or representations.

An intermediary may face responsibility within the scope of the services it actually undertook.

And a public hospital case may instead result in liability of the responsible administration.

If you suffered serious injury following medical treatment in Turkey, determining whether the doctor, clinic, hospital or another healthcare provider is legally responsible should be one of the first stages of the malpractice investigation. Identifying every relevant actor early can prevent a legally valid claim from being directed against the wrong defendant and can reveal institutional failures that would be missed by examining the surgeon alone.

Legal Disclaimer

This article provides general information concerning the legal responsibility of doctors, clinics, hospitals and healthcare tourism providers under Turkish law as of September 2026. It does not constitute individual legal advice.

Liability depends on the type of treatment, contractual relationship, status of the healthcare institution, medical evidence, informed-consent process, role of any intermediary, nature of the alleged malpractice and causal connection between the relevant conduct and the patient’s injury.

Private hospitals, public hospitals, aesthetic procedures, medical tourism intermediaries and individual doctors may be subject to different legal and procedural rules.

Each medical malpractice claim should therefore be assessed individually before the responsible defendants and appropriate legal procedure are determined.