Turkish medical tourism has been spectacularly soaring since 2013 year-on-year, with Natural Clinic as one of its frontrunners.
Napoleon famously said: ‘if the world was an empire, Istanbul would be its capital’. He also said: ‘if the world was a hospital, Istanbul would be its operations room’. Or at least he might have, if he’d lived long enough to need a facelift.
Taking a sneak-peak into Natural Clinic’s facility is a slide down the helter-skelter of millenary istanboulite cosmopolitanism:
Turkish Surgeons, Australian patients, British nurses, Turkish anesthesiologists, German translators, Georgian cooks, Russian receptionists and a cocktail of over 23 languages, 17 races and 19 medical specializations, all bottled-up in a lavish clinic that became one of the biggest and most ambitious centres in Europe as it opened its doors in 2021.
Hence the BBC’s quest to reportage one of the frontrunners of Turkish medical tourism: Natural Clinic, where Hollywood celebrities Michele Morrone and Alexandra Stan got treatment, along with Italy’s world cup footballer Niccolo Zaniolo, or Elma dos Santos Aveiro, Cristiano Ronaldo’s sister.
The BBC’s correspondent visited the clinic’s operation headquarters, where hundreds of medical experts answer the calls of over 1,000 daily requests from patients from Europe, the US, Canada, Japan and Australia.
The combination of affordable prices, excellent surgeons and private clinics has sent American and Saudi investors on a gold-rush, pouring billions of dollars into Turkish Med, which is currently a $10bn/year industry, and is (literally) changing the face of the world.
But what is behind the aesthetic craze, and the over 300,000 yearly tourists that flock to Istanbul and return home with a clinical boost?
Surely, something’s terrible wrong with the world if that many people are interested in aesthetic procedures?
According to Mr. Mürtezaoğlu, CEO and Founder of Natural Group, the opposite is true:
‘In a time where humans live longer and healthier lives, increasingly more people are feeling a mismatch between their looks and their sense of self. Hence why harmonizing a young, vibrant spirit with a youthful appearance is reasonable in terms of self-perception.’
Employing some of the best professionals in Turkey, Natural Clinic is a titan in the industry.
