Medical Malpractice in Turkey for Foreign Patients: Legal Claims, Evidence and Time Limits

This guide explains how to secure medical evidence, mandatory mediation, consumer court jurisdiction, time limits, and remote litigation.

A foreign patient harmed by surgery, dental work or other treatment in Türkiye can claim compensation under Turkish law after returning home, against the clinic or private hospital and, depending on the facts, the doctor and the agency that arranged the trip. Where the treatment is a consumer transaction, the consumer court hears the claim and applying to a mediator first is a condition of the lawsuit (Consumer Protection Law No. 6502, Articles 73(1) and 73/A(1)); otherwise the civil court of first instance hears it. Several time limits may apply, and the shortest civil ones are two years: for a tort claim, from learning of the damage and the person liable (Turkish Code of Obligations, Article 72(1)), and for a defective service to a consumer, from performance (Consumer Protection Law, Article 16(1)). Most steps can be run from abroad through a lawyer acting on a power of attorney.

A woman from Florida has a rhinoplasty in Istanbul and, once home, struggles to breathe through one side of her nose; a surgeon in Miami recommends a revision. A man from Ohio pays for a hair transplant that leaves a visible scar at the back of his head and thin growth at the front. A patient in Texas has a full set of porcelain veneers placed in Türkiye, and within months a dentist in Houston removes and replaces them. These are illustrations, not client cases. They raise the same three questions: what can still be done, against whom, and by when.

The governing rules derive from Turkish substantive and procedural law: the Turkish Code of Obligations (TBK, Law No. 6098), the Consumer Protection Law (TKHK, Law No. 6502), the Code of Civil Procedure (HMK, Law No. 6100), Ministry of Health regulations, and Law No. 5718 on International Private and Procedural Law (MÖHUK).

Step-by-step: How foreign patients pursue a malpractice claim in Turkey

Pursuing compensation for medical negligence in Turkey follows a structured legal sequence:

1. Secure the Turkish and home-country records: before any revision, ask the Turkish facility for a copy of your file (Patient Rights Regulation, Article 16) and the documents a health tourism facility must hand over on request (Health Tourism Regulation, Article 12(1)(a)), and have your doctor at home record the condition in writing, with photographs and measurements.
2. Medical review: where the answer requires special or technical knowledge, the court obtains a report from a court-appointed expert (Code of Civil Procedure, Article 266(1)), and each party may submit a scientific opinion from a specialist of its choice (Article 293). An independent medical opinion before filing helps show whether the outcome is a recognised complication or a departure from proper care.
3. Mediation where required: for disputes heard by the consumer courts, applying to a mediator before filing is a condition of the lawsuit, unless an exception such as the remit of the consumer arbitration committees applies (Consumer Protection Law, Article 73/A(1)). Meetings can be attended through lawyers (Mediation Law No. 6325, Article 15(6)), and limitation stops running from the application until the final minutes are drawn up (Article 18/A(15)).
4. The lawsuit: the claim is filed in the consumer court or the civil court of first instance. Bodily harm covers in particular treatment costs, loss of earnings, losses from reduced or lost capacity to work and damage to economic prospects (Turkish Code of Obligations, Article 54), and the judge may also award non-pecuniary damages (Article 56).
5. Running it from abroad: a lawyer in Türkiye acts on a power of attorney signed before a notary abroad and apostilled; Turkish citizens can also have it drawn up at a Turkish consulate, because notarial functions abroad are carried out by consuls (Notaries Law No. 1512, Article 191).

The answers come from Turkish law, because the treatment took place in Türkiye and the clinic, the doctor and often the agency are there. Turkish law has no separate code for medical claims. It works with the Turkish Code of Obligations (TBK, Law No. 6098), the Consumer Protection Law (TKHK, Law No. 6502), the Code of Civil Procedure (HMK, Law No. 6100), Ministry of Health regulations and, once a US element enters, Law No. 5718 on International Private and Procedural Law (MÖHUK).

This guide is written for patients living in the United States and for relatives who help them. It is part of our series for people in the United States with a legal matter in Türkiye. For procedure-specific background, see the site’s guides on cosmetic surgery malpractice, dental malpractice and hair transplant complications.

Before the revision in the US: record the evidence first

Evidence in these files can be lost in the United States as easily as in Türkiye. Once a corrective operation is done, the original result can no longer be examined. Before the revision, ask your US doctor to record the condition as found: a written consultation note, measurements, photographs from standard angles and imaging where it is relevant. Keep your own dated photographs as well, starting with the first days after the Turkish procedure.

Turkish procedure law treats this material as evidence. Under HMK Article 199, written or printed text, photographs, film, image or sound recordings and data in electronic form that can prove the disputed facts are all documents. Your WhatsApp exchanges with the clinic’s coordinator, emails from the agency and the before-and-after pictures the clinic sent you fall within that definition.

Where evidence may be lost or become much harder to present, a party may ask a Turkish court, before any lawsuit, for an inspection, an expert examination or the hearing of witnesses to establish a fact it will rely on later (HMK Article 400(1) and (2)). Before a case is filed, the request goes to the court that would hear the main case, or to the civil court of peace where the thing to be examined is located or where the witness lives (Article 401(1)). This route suits records and witnesses in Türkiye. For a nose or a scalp that is about to be operated on in Miami or Columbus, the practical safeguard is the US documentation described above.

What to collect, and from whom

Getting the Turkish file while you are in the US

The Patient Rights Regulation (Hasta Hakları Yönetmeliği) covers every public and private institution where health services are provided (Article 2). Article 16 allows the patient to examine the file and records containing information about his or her health, directly or through a representative holding a power of attorney or a legal representative, and to obtain a copy. Article 17 gives the right to have incomplete, unclear or wrong entries completed, explained or corrected, and to object to reports about your health.

Facilities that treat international health tourists must set up an international health tourism unit for admission, registration, diagnosis, treatment, billing, discharge and interpreting, with at least one staff member whose foreign-language skill is documented (Health Tourism Regulation, Article 7(1) and (2)). For each international patient, a staff member of that unit is designated as the responsible person and recorded on the Ministry’s portal (Article 7(4)). That unit is the natural address for a written request sent from the US. Send it by email and by a traceable channel, list every item, and keep the reply.

A parallel request can be made under the Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK, Law No. 6698). Article 11(1) lets anyone ask a data controller whether personal data about them were processed and, if so, request information about it. Article 13(2) requires the controller to conclude the request as soon as possible and within thirty days at the latest, without charge; only if the operation involves an extra cost may the fee in the Board’s tariff be charged. The right to a copy of the medical file itself rests on Article 16 of the Patient Rights Regulation.

A note for Turkish citizens and Turkish-American dual citizens. The Regulation’s definition of international health tourism expressly includes Turkish citizens residing abroad (Article 4(1)(ı)), but Article 2(2)(f) places persons covered by Articles 28 and 44 of the Turkish Citizenship Law (Law No. 5901) outside its scope: former Turkish citizens by birth who gave up citizenship with permission and their descendants up to the third degree (Article 28), and persons who acquired another citizenship and had it recorded in the Turkish civil register (Article 44). Under Article 2(3), they may still receive services under the Regulation if they voluntarily undertake to pay as international health tourists. The Patient Rights Regulation, the Code of Obligations and the procedural rules below apply without that distinction.

What the clinic had to tell you before the procedure

Consent paperwork is sometimes signed on the morning of surgery, after a short talk with a coordinator. The Patient Rights Regulation sets a different standard. Article 24 requires the patient’s consent for medical interventions. Under Article 15, the patient is informed of, among other things, who will perform the intervention, where and how, and how long it is expected to take (15(b)); other diagnostic and treatment options with their benefits and risks (15(c)); and possible complications (15(ç)).

Article 18 requires the information to be given as plainly as possible, leaving no room for doubt, in a way the patient can understand. As a rule, the health professional who will perform the intervention informs the patient orally (where circumstances make it necessary for someone else to do it, another health professional competent to inform may do so, with an explanation to the patient), and outside emergencies the patient is given a reasonable time. For interventions where legislation requires it or where a dispute is medically likely, the facility prepares a consent form containing the Article 15 information, explains it orally and has it signed in two copies: one goes into the file and one to the patient (Article 26).

For the Florida patient, these provisions frame the questions: was she told about the breathing risk and the chance of a revision, by whom, in what language, and how long before surgery? For the Ohio patient, a specific regulation also applies. The Regulation on Hair Transplant Units, as amended on 12 September 2025, reserves the opening of channels to physicians holding a hair transplant certificate and to the physician groups it lists, and allows harvesting and placing the follicles to be done by those physicians or by certified health professionals (Article 9(3)). Certified assistants work under the supervision and responsibility of those physicians (Article 9(4)). For every patient, photographs of the donor and recipient areas before and after the procedure are attached to the signed informed consent form (Article 10(2)(ç)), and a patient information form recording the technique, the number of grafts, the photographs and the names of the team is completed on the Ministry’s system and archived (Article 10(3)).

Who can be answerable under Turkish law

The clinic or private hospital

When you paid a clinic for treatment, the first claim is usually contractual. Article 112 of the Code of Obligations provides that if an obligation is not performed at all or not performed properly, the debtor must compensate the creditor’s resulting loss unless it proves that no fault can be attributed to it. The burden of showing the absence of fault therefore lies with the clinic. The clinic also answers for damage that its auxiliaries, such as employed doctors, nurses and technicians, cause to the patient while doing the work (Article 116(1)). Under Article 114(2), the tort rules apply by analogy to breach of contract.

Turkish law has no chapter devoted to the medical treatment contract. Article 502 defines the mandate (vekâlet) and extends the mandate rules, as far as their nature allows, to work-type contracts the Code does not regulate. Under those rules the mandatary must perform personally unless authorized to delegate or unless necessity or custom permits it (Article 506(1)), must carry out the work with loyalty and care (Article 506(2)), and is measured against the conduct of a prudent mandatary taking on similar work (Article 506(3)). If the surgeon you were promised was not the one who operated, Article 506(1) and Article 15(b) of the Patient Rights Regulation are where the analysis starts. Where a finished result was promised, such as a dental prosthesis made to order, the question can arise whether the rules on the contract for work (eser sözleşmesi, Article 470) apply instead. The answer affects the limitation period.

The release you signed

Clinics serving foreign patients sometimes ask them to sign broad releases. Article 115(1) makes an advance agreement excluding the debtor’s liability for gross fault absolutely void. Article 115(3) goes further for a service, profession or trade that requires professional skill and may only be carried on with a permit granted by law or by the competent authorities: there, an advance agreement excluding liability even for slight fault is absolutely void. Article 116(3) applies the same rule to an agreement excluding liability for auxiliaries. Law No. 1219 makes the practice of medicine in Türkiye conditional on a diploma from a faculty of medicine (Article 1) and sets separate diploma rules for dentistry, so a clinic relying on a release has to answer these provisions.

The doctor personally

If you contracted with the surgeon directly, the contractual rules above apply to him or her. Otherwise the claim against the doctor rests on tort: a person who causes damage to another by a faulty and unlawful act must compensate it (Article 49(1)). In tort, the injured person bears the burden of proving the damage and the fault of the person who caused it (Article 50(1)). A clinic that employs the doctor is also liable in tort for damage the employee causes while doing assigned work, unless it proves that it took the care required in choosing, instructing and supervising the employee (Article 66(1) and (2)). An employer running a business is, in addition, liable for damage caused by the business’s activities unless it proves that its working organization was suited to preventing the damage (Article 66(3)).

The agency or facilitator

Many US patients book through an agency that advertises in the US, arranges the clinic, the hotel and the airport transfer, and supplies an interpreter. Turkish law defines an intermediary (aracı kuruluş) as an establishment run by authorized legal entities that advises international health tourists and organizes the health facility, accommodation, transport and transfer (Health Tourism Regulation, Article 4(1)(a)). Facilities and intermediaries both need an authorization certificate to operate in international health tourism, issued by the Ministry of Health for facilities and by USHAŞ for intermediaries (Article 5(1)).

An agency answers at least for what it undertook in its own contract (TBK Article 112). The Consumer Protection Law defines a provider as anyone offering a service to a consumer for commercial or professional purposes, or acting in the name or on behalf of the party offering it (Article 3(1)(ı)), a definition worth testing against what the agency actually did. If the facilitator is a US company with no presence in Türkiye, whether and where it can be sued at home is a US-law question.

Several defendants, and insurance

Where several persons cause one damage together, or are liable for the same damage on different grounds, the rules on joint and several liability apply to them (Article 61). If one person’s liability can rest on several grounds, the judge decides on the ground that gives the injured person the most favorable redress, unless the injured person asks otherwise or the law provides otherwise (Article 60). Doctors and facilities may carry liability insurance; the insurer’s position is examined in the file once the defendants are identified.

What a claim can cover

Article 54 of the Code of Obligations lists, in particular, four heads of bodily damage: treatment costs, loss of earnings, losses from reduced or lost capacity to work, and losses from the impairment of economic prospects. For a patient in the US, the cost of the revision surgery or the replacement veneers is the obvious first item, and the invoices from US providers are its proof. Where bodily integrity is harmed, the judge may also award an appropriate sum as non-pecuniary damages, taking the particular circumstances into account (Article 56(1)). How these heads are calculated is explained in the guide on medical malpractice compensation in Türkiye.

If the treatment counts as a consumer transaction, the Consumer Protection Law adds its own remedies for a defective service: re-performance of the service, repair of the work resulting from it at no cost, a price reduction proportionate to the defect, or rescission, together with compensation under the Code of Obligations (TKHK Article 15(1)).

Consumer court or civil court, and mandatory mediation

The Consumer Protection Law applies to consumer transactions, which it defines to include work, mandate and similar contracts between a consumer and a person acting for commercial or professional purposes (Article 3(1)(l)). Whether a given treatment falls within that definition is assessed at the start of the file. If it does, three consequences follow.

First, the consumer courts have jurisdiction over disputes arising from consumer transactions (Article 73(1)), and suits that consumers file there are exempt from the fees under the Fees Law (Article 73(2)). Second, for disputes heard by consumer courts, applying to a mediator before filing is a condition of the lawsuit (Article 73/A(1)); among the exceptions are disputes within the remit of the consumer arbitration committees (Article 73/A(1)(a)). Applying to those committees is mandatory below a value threshold set in Article 68(1) and revalued every calendar year, and not possible above it (Article 68(1) and (4)). Third, the Article 15 remedies described above become available.

You do not need to travel for mediation. Parties may attend mediation meetings in person, through their legal representatives or through their lawyers (Mediation Law No. 6325, Article 15(6)). Where a statute makes mediation a condition of the lawsuit, as Article 73/A does here, limitation stops running and forfeiture periods do not run from the application to the mediation bureau until the final minutes are drawn up (Article 18/A(1) and (15)).

If the dispute is not a consumer matter, the civil court of first instance (asliye hukuk mahkemesi) is the competent court for claims concerning property rights and personal rights unless the law provides otherwise (HMK Article 2(1)).

Turkish courts, Turkish law, and the question of suing at home

The international jurisdiction of Turkish courts is determined by the domestic venue rules (MÖHUK Article 40). A claim can be filed at the domicile of the defendant (HMK Article 6(1)); with several defendants, at the domicile of any one of them (Article 7(1)); for a contract, also where it was to be performed (Article 10); and for a tort, also where the act was committed or the damage occurred (Article 16).

Which law governs is also decided under MÖHUK. Absent a choice of law, a contract is governed by the law most closely connected to it, which for contracts made in the course of commercial or professional activity is taken to be the law of the workplace of the party performing the characteristic obligation, unless the circumstances as a whole show a more closely connected law (Article 24(4)). The special consumer-contract rule does not apply, package tours excepted, to contracts in which the service must be supplied to the consumer in a country other than the one where he or she habitually resides (Article 26(4)). Tort obligations are governed by the law of the country where the tort was committed (Article 34(1)); where the act and the damage occur in different countries, the law of the country where the damage occurred applies (Article 34(2)). For a procedure performed by a clinic in Istanbul, these rules point toward Turkish law, subject to a valid choice of law and to the closer-connection exceptions. An agency package bought in the US that combines treatment with travel can raise different answers.

Some patients ask whether they can simply sue in their home state. That raises US-law questions, such as jurisdiction over a Turkish clinic, service and the assessment of damages, which belong to a US attorney. Two Turkish-side points matter for that decision. Service on a defendant in Türkiye runs through the Hague Service Convention, and Türkiye has declared its opposition to the Article 10 methods, so service by post is not available; see our guide on serving US court papers in Türkiye. And a US judgment can be enforced in Türkiye only after a Turkish court grants an enforcement decision (MÖHUK Article 50(1)). The conditions include a reciprocity-based agreement between Türkiye and the state of the court, or a statutory provision or actual practice in that state allowing Turkish judgments to be enforced (Article 54(1)(a)). Article 54(1)(b) adds two jurisdiction limbs, joined in the statute by “or”: one concerns matters within the exclusive jurisdiction of Turkish courts, the other lets the defendant object that the court assumed jurisdiction without a real connection to the subject matter or the parties. The guide on enforcing a US court judgment in Türkiye covers that procedure.

A foreign person who sues in a Turkish court must provide the security that the court sets to cover court and enforcement costs and the other side’s damages (MÖHUK Article 48(1)), and the court exempts the claimant on the basis of reciprocity (Article 48(2)). The rule concerns foreign natural and legal persons, so it does not apply to a patient who holds Turkish citizenship.

How a Turkish court assesses what went wrong

Whether a doctor fell short of the standard of care is a medical question. Under HMK Article 266(1), where the matter requires special or technical knowledge outside law, the court decides, on a party’s request or on its own motion, to obtain the view of a court-appointed expert (bilirkişi); it may not do so for matters that general knowledge or the judge’s legal knowledge can resolve. Each side may also file a scientific opinion from a physician of its choice (Article 293(1)). The judge may summon that physician to be heard, and if the physician fails to appear without a valid excuse, the report is not taken into account (Article 293(2) and (3)).

This is where the US records earn their place. A Miami surgeon’s description of the airway, a Houston dentist’s findings on the fit of each veneer, or an Ohio doctor’s notes on scarring in the donor area are facts that an expert examination in Türkiye can weigh against the Turkish file. A party relying on a document in a foreign language must file its translation, and the court may ask for an official translation (HMK Article 223). Foreign official documents need confirmation by the issuing state’s competent authority or a Turkish consulate, with treaty rules on authentication reserved (Article 224); the Apostille Convention, in force for the United States since 15 October 1981 and for Türkiye since 29 September 1985, is that treaty route. A US doctor’s report is a private document, but a notarized signature followed by an apostille makes its origin harder to dispute.

Time limits: different clocks, different starting dates

Limitation can defeat a claim that is sound on the merits. Several periods may apply to the same facts, and they start on different dates.

Under Article 148, the periods set in Articles 146 and 147 cannot be changed by contract. Article 147 does not mention medical treatment: whether a damages claim under a treatment contract falls under the five-year rule for mandate (Article 147(5)) or the general ten-year rule (Article 146) is a characterization question that the text does not settle, and whether the consumer rules apply is assessed case by case. While those questions are open, the cautious course is to plan around the shortest period that may apply, two years, counted from the earliest date on which it could start, which is usually the date of the procedure. That is a safety margin, not the statutory rule: the two-year tort period runs from the date the patient learned of the damage and of the person liable, the consumer period from performance of the service, and the contract-for-work period from delivery. For the veneers in Texas, the last two would both be counted from roughly the date the veneers were fitted.

Correspondence does not stop the clock. Under Article 154, limitation is interrupted when the debtor acknowledges the debt, for example by a partial payment, or when the creditor sues, raises the claim by way of defense, goes to arbitration or starts enforcement or bankruptcy proceedings. Negotiations with the clinic are not on that list, and whether a particular message amounts to an acknowledgment depends on its wording. A written complaint can still matter for another reason: if the rules on the contract for work apply, a defect that appears later has to be reported to the contractor without delay, or the work is deemed accepted (Article 477(3)).

A criminal complaint is a separate track

Negligently causing pain to another person’s body or impairing his or her health or perception is an offense under Article 89(1) of the Turkish Penal Code (Law No. 5237), with increased penalties for the graver results listed in paragraphs 2 and 3. Investigation and prosecution of negligent injury depend on a complaint (Article 89(5)), although a complaint is not required where the offense, other than one under paragraph 1, is committed with conscious negligence. The complaint must be filed within six months of the day the person entitled learns of the act and of the perpetrator (Article 73(1) and (2)).

A criminal complaint concerns criminal liability; compensation is pursued through the civil routes described above. One caution: if the public prosecution ends because the victim withdraws the complaint and, when withdrawing, also expressly waives personal rights, a civil action can no longer be brought (Article 73(7)).

Running the case from the United States

Most of the work can be done without travelling, although a court-appointed expert may need to examine the patient in person, depending on the injury and the questions put to the expert.

A Turkish lawyer acts on a power of attorney. A US citizen usually signs before a US notary public and then obtains an apostille from the competent authority, generally the Secretary of State of the state where the document was notarized; the Apostille Convention applies between the United States and Türkiye. A Turkish citizen can also have the power drawn up at the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C. or at a Turkish Consulate General in Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami or New York, because notarial functions abroad are carried out by consuls (Notaries Law No. 1512, Article 191). The wording matters: without express authority, a lawyer may not, among other things, settle, resort to alternative dispute resolution, waive the claim or release the other party (HMK Article 74(1)). Our guide on power of attorney and apostille from the US explains the steps.

Istanbul is on UTC+3 all year. New York is seven hours behind in US daylight saving time and eight in winter; Los Angeles is ten and eleven. US clocks change on different dates from Europe, and Türkiye does not change at all, so the gap shifts only on the US switch dates. Questions about your US health insurance, US tax or a parallel claim in the US belong to a US-qualified adviser.

How Lex Lata handles a US patient’s file

Lex Lata acts for clients in the United States in Turkish medical claims against clinics, private hospitals, doctors and intermediaries. The work is done in English, by email and video call across the time difference: requesting and reviewing the Turkish file, arranging sworn Turkish translations of US records, preparing the power of attorney, and representing the patient in mediation and before the Turkish courts. Lex Lata advises on Turkish law only. You can reach the office through the contact page, and the overview for people in the United States lists the other guides in this series, including inheriting property in Türkiye as a US heir. The site’s health law practice page and the guide to medical tourism in Türkiye give further background.