Nine homes turned into clinics, seven 'doctors' with no medical training and 57 patients questioned: the Bursa raid on foreign nationals selling treatment on social media

Türkiye attracts students from South Asia, Africa and the Middle East for medical degrees, and many foreign nationals living there look for healthcare in their own language. Both depend on the same rule: anyone offering treatment must hold a recognised qualification and, if foreign, a Turkish work permit, and must practise from a licensed facility. A case announced in Bursa on 6 May 2026 shows what happens when that chain is bypassed with a flat, a social media account and an unchecked diploma.

According to Habertürk, reporting a DHA dispatch, the Bursa Provincial Police Directorate spent three months on technical and physical surveillance before raiding nine addresses and detaining seventeen foreign nationals. Police said the suspects presented themselves as doctors, used fake diplomas and advertised paid examinations and treatment on social media. Habertürk and TRT Haber reported that ten of the seventeen had worked without a Turkish work permit, and Habertürk said these ten had health training, while seven were not doctors and had examined and treated patients. ERTV reported that the seven had no medical training yet performed surgical procedures.

ERTV listed the specialties the suspects had claimed: four in obstetrics and gynaecology, four dentists, one in paediatrics and one in internal medicine. ERTV also described practices set up in the bedrooms and living rooms of homes converted into illegal polyclinics, and Sağlık Personeli said police seized an ultrasound device, a dental unit, a stretcher, a laptop and other medical equipment. ERTV said officers took statements from 57 foreign nationals, including women and children, who had come to the addresses for treatment. All seventeen were referred to court and released under judicial control.

The patients were foreign nationals, the advertising was on social media and the setting was a private home, so none of the normal checks came into play: on a social media page a diploma is a photograph, and a photograph proves nothing. The ten trained but unpermitted suspects show a second point: a qualification from another country does not by itself give anyone the right to practise in Türkiye. The country's 2025 fake-degree network, recorded elsewhere on this site, shows that even documents in the state database have been forged.

For a student or family weighing medicine abroad, the lesson cuts two ways. If you need care in a foreign city, use a licensed hospital or clinic and ask for the practitioner's registration, not a diploma on a profile. For a student, the degree is only the first document; the licence and work permit are what allow you to treat anyone, and no agent can sell them. Verify such claims with the national regulator, pay the institution rather than an intermediary, and keep your original certificates.