Bahçeli's call to reopen military hospitals meets rejection in Turkish parliament

The Turkish Parliament debated the reopening of military hospitals and academies, a proposal championed by the İYİ Party. Ankara Deputy Ahmet Eşref Fakıbaba argued that civilian hospitals are ill-equipped for wartime injuries, contrasting their capabilities with the urgent needs of soldiers facing shrapnel, mine blasts, and gunfire. He highlighted Turkey's unique position as the sole NATO member lacking a dedicated military healthcare system, a deficiency he deemed detrimental to the Turkish Armed Forces operating in conflict zones.

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You can perform surgeries like appendicitis, gallbladder, stomach, intestines, cancer, and similar ones in a civilian hospital, but in war, there is shrapnel injury, mine explosion, firearm injury, and multiple organ injuries, moments when seconds, not minutes, save lives.

Fakıbaba referenced recent statements by MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli, a key ally in the Cumhur İttifak coalition, who had also called for the reinstatement of military hospitals. The İYİ Party expressed satisfaction that their long-standing proposal now had support from within the ruling coalition, despite previous rejections of their legislative efforts. Fakıbaba urged a unified approach, emphasizing that the issue transcends politics and concerns the lives of soldiers and national security.

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Today, Turkey is the only country in NATO that does not have a military hospital, and it is vital that military hospitals be reopened and integrated into the army.

However, AKP Afyonkarahisar Deputy Hasan Arslan countered that military medical training and hospital systems are distinct concepts. He explained that military medical education was integrated with civilian education in 1933 and later became more independent before being transferred to the National Defense University in 2016. Arslan asserted that military health organizations were not abolished but rather incorporated into the existing civilian infrastructure.

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Because the issue is not politics, the issue is the lives of our soldiers and the security of our nation. Come, let us come together on common ground on this issue, let us reopen military hospitals, let us re-establish the military medical system, let us revive the Refik Saydam Hygiene Institute because a strong state is a state that can sustain its army and its health with its own institutions.