Long-Term Care Measures in Turkey During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a strain on long-term care regimes by rendering the aged, disabled, and everyone else in need of care even more vulnerable inside welfare systems, leading to an unprecedentedhealth crisis in recent history. The issue of long-term care institutions and policies has come up due to deaths in long-term care facilities accounting for nearly half of all COVID-19 deaths in North America and Europe. Turkey, however, is one of the countries where the COVID-19 death rate in long-term care institutions is low, with a rate of 4%. However, the elderly population in Turkey mainly receives family-based care rather than institutional care, and people over 65 made up the majority of COVID-19 deaths in the early stages of the pandemic, not including long-term care institutions. This article discusses the impact COVID-19 has had on long-term care within Turkey’s family-based care regime. Turkey has implemented long-term quarantine measures to protect its elderly population for four consecutive periods. As discussed in the article, the long-term care measures developed at different stages and levels have been based upon family-based long-term care policies. The future of long-term care, which has been prioritized due to the pandemic, is presented in line with the discussions in the literature.