Eye care in Turkey

Turkey has a large private eye hospital sector, built around high-volume laser and cataract surgery, and that is what travels well: procedures that are planned, done in a day, and checked over the following days rather than months. Laser vision correction for short sight, long sight and astigmatism; cataract surgery with a standard or premium lens; refractive lens exchange for people past the age for laser; cross-linking and, at the specialist end, corneal transplantation for keratoconus; and squint surgery for adults and children.

What travels less well is chronic eye disease. Glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration need years of follow-up close to home, and a trip abroad for a single injection or a pressure check rarely makes sense. If that is your situation, the honest advice is to use a Turkish clinic for a second opinion or a specific operation, not for ongoing care.

The clinics listed further down are ranked by FlymediScore. Each has its own page, and each procedure has a page of its own with the detail that belongs there. This page is the map.

Searches for the top eye hospital or the top ophthalmologist in Turkey bring up pages that award themselves the title. Nobody keeps that league table. What you can check is narrower and more useful. Every clinic that operates on eyes must be licensed by the Ministry of Health; ask for the licence if it is not shown. The surgeon should be an ophthalmologist, and for anything beyond routine laser, a subspecialist: cornea and refractive for laser and keratoconus, cataract and lens for lens surgery, paediatric or strabismus for a squint. Ask how many of your procedure the surgeon does in a year, not the hospital.

Then the questions that separate clinics in practice: what happens if the result is not what was planned, and is an enhancement included or charged; who sees you the day after surgery, and who answers if something feels wrong once you are home; which laser platform and which lens brands they work with, and why they recommend one for you; and whether the follow-up plan is written down before you pay. International accreditation such as JCI describes hospital processes, not the surgeon. Reviews from patients who had your procedure say more than general hospital reviews, and Turkish patients' reviews are worth reading too, because the same surgeons treat both.

There is no figure on this page because eye surgery is priced per procedure, per eye and per technology, and one number for "eye care" would be wrong for everyone. Each procedure page shows the clinics' starting prices with a basis chip, either "All-inclusive package" or "Treatment only", and the listing below does the same for the clinics. Compare like with like.

What moves the price: one eye or both; the laser technology, since femtosecond and lenticule extraction cost more than a microkeratome; the lens, since a trifocal or toric lens costs a multiple of a monofocal one; the surgeon; whether the pre-operative examination, drops and follow-up checks are included; whether an enhancement or a second procedure is covered; and, on a treatment-only price, transfers and accommodation for the days of checks.

What to have in writing before you pay:

• The exact procedure, the technology and, for lens surgery, the lens model, per eye
• Whether the price is for one eye or both, and what changes if only one eye turns out to be suitable
• The pre-operative examination, and whether you pay for it if you are found unsuitable
• Drops and medication after surgery, and the follow-up checks during your stay
• The enhancement or retreatment policy: what is covered, for how long, and whether you must return to Turkey for it
• Transfers, accommodation and an interpreter, if the package is described as all-inclusive