Turkey’s health ministry has fined and suspended more than 100 obstetrician-gynaecologists for performing Caesarean sections, the first large-scale enforcement of an April 2025 ban on elective procedures at private facilities without medical justification. The penalties, reported by the BirGün newspaper and confirmed by medical chambers, include temporary suspensions, compulsory antenatal training, and in at least one case dismissal and a six-month practice ban pending a state-hospital exam.

The crackdown is a central plank of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “Decade of the Family” initiative, which seeks to reverse declining birth rates and promote what he calls natural childbirth. Turkey has the highest C-section rate among the 38 OECD nations, with 615 procedures per 1,000 live births in 2023. Medical professionals told AFP that C-sections are favoured for their time efficiency—roughly 30 minutes versus 12 hours for a vaginal delivery—and because they reduce the risk of malpractice litigation, offering a perceived guarantee of safety for both doctor and patient.

The Antalya Chamber of Physicians detailed that obstetricians have been issued warnings, subjected to disciplinary investigations, and compelled to attend antenatal courses. The Turkish Medical Association (TTB) has pushed back, with senior official Ayşe Gültekingil describing the high caesarean rate as “structural” and arguing that penalising individual doctors fails to address systemic deficiencies in the healthcare system. The association’s stance reflects a broader concern among practitioners that the ban may shift risk rather than reduce it, potentially delaying necessary interventions or pushing patients towards state hospitals already under strain.

The health ministry has not publicly detailed the criteria for medical justification, leaving private practitioners in regulatory uncertainty. The next indicator of the policy’s trajectory will be the outcome of the first wave of disciplinary hearings and the exam results for suspended doctors, as well as any formal legal challenge from medical bodies. The government’s demographic targets ensure that the enforcement campaign is unlikely to ease, even as the structural drivers of Turkey’s C-section rate remain unaddressed.