ANKARA - The World Bank will lend a 49.4 million euros (nearly 60.6 million U.S. dollars) loan to Turkey to support the Turkish government's Health Transition Project which has a total cost of 61.26 million euros.
Issuing a statement on Friday, the World Bank said that the Loan agreement was signed by Turkish Treasury Undersecretary Ibrahim Canakci and World Bank Director for Turkey Country Unit Andrew N. Vorkink.
The main objective of the project is to extend health insurance coverage to all the Turkish population and reduce inequalities in access to health care, especially for the poor and those living in rural and peri-urban areas of the country. This will narrow the gap in access to the quality and utilization of health services between Turkey and other middle-income and EU accession countries.
''The project will support a comprehensive sector program and will include five key components: a) strengthen MOH's ability to complete its institutional transformation from a mainly provider of services to a policy maker and regulator of service provision, while retaining key public health functions, including disease prevention and health promotion; b) extend universal health insurance to cover the entire population under one health insurance scheme; c) reorganize service delivery through the adoption of an organization model based on family medicine as the basis for the provision of outpatient or primary health care services; d)develop human resources aiming at strengthening the competencies of future family practitioners and other allied health professionals, including healthcare managers; e)improve the national social security and health information system to support the development of national standards and provide the necessary information support in line with the realignment of institutional roles and responsibilities,'' the bank said.
During the signing ceremony Andrew Vorkink indicated that the Turkish government's program would lead to improvements in the health sector in Turkey commensurate with Turkey's level of socio-economic development.
Vorkink added, ''this loan will not only help Turkey to overcome inequalities in health and access to the health care system, it will also help to improve the efficiencies in resource allocation and bring better health care across Turkey and better governance of the health system. And in the long term, it will help Turkey to meet European health service standards''.
The loan has a maturity of 17 years with 4 years of grace at a variable interest rate based on + a total spread, 44 basis points over LIBOR.
(MS-AY) 11.06.2004