Reflections of health policies implemented in Turkey on puclic hospitals during the European Union adaptation process

Health comes first, for many countries, on top of the social policies, which includes number of problems to be solved. European Union assesses the health policy issue within the member countries' own authority areas. Although a common health policy had not been created yet, when the member and candidate countries' health policies are examined, it's observed that the applied health policies are similar policies. Number of reflections of implemented, especially in western European countries, health reforms had been observed in other European countries, specifically in hospital reforms.In the last twenty years, important reforms had been realized in Europe in the field of health. Increases in chronic diseases, in parallel to the increase in elder population, had raised the health expenses in Europe. Cost reduction efforts in health, the technological progress encountered in health industry and changes in the understanding of health services consist of the basis of the reforms implemented.Major changes in the field of health have started to happen in Turkey, in parallel with the start of full membership negotiations with the European Union. The Health Transformation Project, which was implemented during this period, has brought a series of changes in restructuring of health services, financing, and hospitals. It can be said that associating the Health Transformation Project with the European Union membership negotiations is the driving force on implementation of the reform.In line with this information, the health reforms made in European Union countries and reflections of these reforms on Turkey will be reviewed.In our research, statistics of Ministry of Health, Eurostat, World Health Organization, domestic and foreign academic sources had been utilized and an evaluation of health reforms implemented in Turkey had been tried to be stated.Keywords: European Union, Health policy, Health Transformation Project, Hospital reforms, European Union membership