Turkey’s health ministry has levied fines against more than 100 obstetrician-gynecologists for performing Caesarean sections, while also suspending them from duty and mandating retraining, as reported by the BirGun newspaper on Saturday.

Official data from 2023 indicates that Turkey maintains the highest rate of C-section births among the 38 nations of the OECD, recording approximately 615 such procedures per 1,000 live births that year.

Medical professionals previously explained to AFP that C-sections offer greater time efficiency for hospital staff—averaging 30 minutes compared to up to 12 hours for traditional deliveries—and decrease liability risks associated with complications, providing a stronger guarantee of security for both the physician and the patient.

The punitive measures follow the launch of a government campaign last year to combat declining birth rates under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's "Decade of the Family" initiative, which has increasingly sought to regulate birthing methods.

President Erdogan, a devout Muslim advocating for natural births, aims to curtail the high volume of elective C-sections in the country, a push that led his administration to ban such procedures without medical justification at private healthcare facilities in April 2025.

Citing data from medical associations nationwide, BirGun noted that over 100 physicians faced penalties over C-section frequencies, sparking an immediate backlash from medical circles.

The Antalya Chamber of Physicians stated on its website that obstetricians had been "issued with warnings, subjected to disciplinary investigations, temporarily suspended from practising, and compelled to attend antenatal training courses, on the grounds of high caesarean section rates across the country".

Meanwhile, the Diken news website highlighted the specific case of an obstetrician at a private hospital in Sakarya near Istanbul who was terminated at the ministry's request due to a high C-section volume and subsequently suspended for six months.

During this suspension, the doctor is required to complete training at a state hospital and pass an evaluation before being permitted to resume medical practice.

Dr Ayse Gultekingil, a senior official at the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), criticized the penalties in a statement to BirGun, arguing that penalizing doctors fails to address the underlying causes of the high C-section rates, which she described as "structural".

She noted, "Turkey's caesarean birth rate exceeds 60 percent. But the method of delivery reflects various problems within Turkey's healthcare system."

Source: AFP