Merkez Ambulance began at a time when private ambulance services barely existed in Turkey. Patient transport was, for the most part, improvised: a suitable vehicle was found and the patient was moved somehow. Over a journey of more than fifty years, both the sector and the way we work have changed fundamentally.
What makes a vehicle an ambulance
Today an ambulance is not a vehicle but a system. Stretcher, oxygen, monitor, defibrillator, suction, infusion pumps and — for intensive care transfers — a portable ventilator. Each of these became standard in its own era. We renewed the equipment at every stage, and at every stage we saw that the real difference lay with the crew.
From city streets to international routes
In the early years our work was mostly hospital-to-home and hospital-to-hospital transfers within Istanbul. Intercity transfers followed, and moving a patient safely to Ankara, Antalya or the eastern provinces demanded a new discipline: route planning, oxygen calculated for the whole journey, crew relief. In recent years the picture has changed again. Patients travelling to Turkey for treatment and returning home afterwards, and international transfers run together with insurers and assistance companies, have become a distinct part of what we do.
The part that does not change
Equipment changed and regulation changed. The one thing that did not is that a family called us on one of their hardest days. A transfer may be a logistical job for us; for the person calling it never is.
Today
We operate from Istanbul across Turkey and internationally, and we provide standby ambulances at fixed locations under contract with events, facilities and institutions. Our line is open every day of the year, around the clock.