"Health is everyone's fundamental right"
"Health is everyone's fundamental right," says Muharrem Usta, chairman of the board of the hospital group Medical Park in neighbouring Turkey. With this idea in mind, the first hospital in the chain was established in 1993 - to present super quality yet affordable medical services to all, regardless of social status and affiliation.
Today, Medical Park unites 25 hospitals in 17 cities, making it the most widespread hospital network in Turkey, and treats patients from over 70 countries. In October, the largest hospital in the chain opened its doors in Istanbul - Medical Park Gaziosmanpasa. It will work mainly with patients from abroad and offers preferential conditions for Bulgarian patients.
All hospitals of the Medical Park chain work according to international standards, using the most modern methods in medicine.
Clinic of Medical Park Hospital Group is the first private oncology hospital in Turkey
It was a hospital group called Medical Park that opened the first private cancer clinic in Turkey years ago, for which our southern neighbour is so famous today. Today, Medical Park reports that it is able to provide first-class diagnosis and treatment for cancer patients. Over 8300 patients have undergone treatment with the Gamma Knife radiosurgery unit alone. State-of-the-art methods such as immunotherapy, tomotherapy and more are also applied.
New life with organ transplant
Medical Park performs over 600 transplants a year - kidney, liver , pancreas and cornea. This is one fifth of all transplants performed in Turkey and about 2% of transplants in the whole European Union. In 2011, Medical Park Antalya Hospital became the No. 1 hospital in the world for the third time in terms of the number of organ transplants performed.
Thanks to the experience gained. Medical Park reports an excellent success rate in this type of surgery. Kidney transplants reach 98% success rate 1 year after surgery and 96,7% on the third. In comparison, the average success rates in the United States, for example, are 95.1% and 79.8%, respectively.
Unlike in Bulgaria, living donation in kidney transplants is very common in Turkey. As in Bulgaria, however, it is only allowed between close relatives, explains prof. Alper Demirbaş, under whose supervision the transplants are performed at the Antalya Medical Park. In cases where there is no compatibility between relatives, so-called "cross-donation" is allowed , in which a relative for a patient with kidney disease donates an organ to another patient who also has a donor relative without compatibility, and vice versa. Turkey's first 4-donor cross-matched kidney transplant was performed at the Medical Park Transplant Center.
Hope for life with a bone marrow transplant
In the blood that circulates in our bodies, there are 3 main types of cells: erythrocytes, which carry oxygen and give the blood its red colour; platelets, which help the blood clotting process , and leukocytes, which play a role in the immune system. All of these are continuously produced in our bone marrow, where young stem cells are formed and differentiated.
In some blood diseases, however, it is possible that the stem cells do not produce the three basic cellular elements of blood, or that they produce abnormal cells, or that there is an uncontrolled proliferation of cells.
In some of these conditions a bone marrow transplant , which is in effect a stem cell transplant, is used. The aim is to destroy the 'defective' stem cells by chemo- or radiotherapy, and replace them with cells from a compatible donor. It is usually applied to patients with leukemia , immune deficiencies, lymphoma, neuroblastoma and other malignancies.
More than 2,000 bone marrow transplants have been performed at Medical Park between 2011 and 2014, including in children. To facilitate finding a suitable donor, the transplant centers for the hospital chain collaborate with international bone marrow banks. They are accredited by the European Bone Marrow Transplantation Group (EBMT) and perform both transplants from relatives with full compatibility and from relatives with HLA incompatibility, haploidentical transplants and cord blood transplants.
High in vitro success rate
Every seventh couple has a problem conceiving a baby, according to Dr. Ainur Ershahin, an associate professor at Goiztepe Medical Park Hospital. An infertility problem is indicated by unsuccessful attempts to conceive in a couple who have had regular sex for 1 year without precautions. Therefore, usually after the first year, examinations of the man and woman are started. However, this period may not be waited in cases where the woman has a problem with her tubes or uterus, where the spermogram has shown abnormal values and conditions, or where the woman is over 35 years of age.
Specialists at the Medical Park Assisted Reproductive Centers achieve pregnancy in about 60% of cases, and 40% of procedures result in the birth of a baby. Perhaps because of the high success rate, their services are sought after by families both from Turkey and around the world - 15% of the IVF patients are from abroad. In order to achieve good results, the medics handle the most modern methods of genetic diagnosis and tracking. Because they believe that every couple has the right to enjoy a baby.
