How We Select Partner Hospitals
We work with three partner hospitals in Turkey — one in Istanbul, one in Izmir and one in Antalya. Every one of them was vetted personally by our founder, a UK eye care professional. This page explains exactly what that vetting involved, what it confirmed — and, just as importantly, what it couldn’t.
Last updated: July 2026 · Vetting performed personally by the founder · Reviewed annually
The Short Version
- Three partner hospitals: Istanbul, Izmir and Antalya. Deliberately few — see below.
- All three are licensed by the Turkish Ministry of Health and hold Turkey’s international health tourism certificate.
- Our principal partner hospital additionally holds JCI accreditation. The other two do not — we say so plainly.
- Our founder has personally visited the Istanbul and Izmir hospitals. The Antalya visit is scheduled — and until it happens, we tell you that too.
- We met the surgeons, checked the technology, tested the translators and coordinated written refund policies for anyone found unsuitable after travelling.
- What we could not independently verify — like centralised outcome data — is listed honestly further down.
Why Only Three Hospitals?
Because vetting done properly doesn’t scale easily — and vetting done by list-ticking isn’t vetting.
Large booking platforms advertise dozens of “partner clinics”. Nobody has personally stood in dozens of diagnostic rooms, met dozens of surgical teams, or sat through dozens of translated consultations. At that scale, “partner” means “signed an agreement”.
We chose the opposite trade-off: a small number of hospitals we can actually know, revisit and hold to a standard. One in Istanbul, one in Izmir, one in Antalya — which also means people can be introduced to a hospital that suits their travel plans without us stretching the word “vetted” past its meaning.
If the network grows, it will grow at the speed of proper vetting — not at the speed of contracts.
What Our Founder Personally Checked
Not a checklist filled in remotely. The founder — with a professional background in UK optical healthcare — carried out the vetting personally. Here’s what it covered:
Licensing & Authorisation
All three hospitals are licensed by the Turkish Ministry of Health, and all three hold Turkey’s international health tourism certificate — the specific authorisation required to treat international visitors. We checked both, for each hospital.
Accreditation — Stated Exactly
Our principal partner hospital holds JCI accreditation — the international standard used to benchmark hospitals worldwide. The other two partners do not hold JCI accreditation, and we won’t blur that with words like “includes” or “where applicable”. You’ll be told the accreditation status of the specific hospital at the point of introduction — and how to verify it yourself (see below).
The Surgeons Themselves
We met and spoke with the individual refractive surgeons — about their experience, their approach to borderline cases, and crucially, their willingness to say no. A surgeon who has never turned anyone away wasn’t screening. These conversations shaped which hospitals made the cut.
Technology, Seen Not Claimed
Diagnostic and laser equipment was verified in person — not accepted from a brochure. We checked that the diagnostic suite supports proper suitability screening (corneal topography and refractive diagnostics), because the machines that keep unsuitable eyes off the table matter as much as the lasers.
Translators — Tested In The Room
English-speaking support isn’t a nice-to-have; for informed consent, it’s everything. We observed the translators working with real consultations. The difference a good translator makes to whether you actually understand your risks and options is enormous — and it’s a specific thing we assessed, not a box we ticked.
Refund Policies — In Writing
We coordinated written refund policies with each partner covering the situation everyone worries about: travelling to Turkey and being found unsuitable at the diagnostic assessment. Ask us for the relevant hospital’s policy in writing before you book anything. We’d insist on the same.
Site Visits — Including The One We Haven’t Done Yet
Our founder has personally visited the Istanbul and Izmir partner hospitals — walking the diagnostic pathway, meeting the clinical and support teams, and seeing how international visitors are actually handled on the day.
The honest bit: Antalya
The Antalya partner hospital has not yet had a personal site visit — it’s scheduled. Its licensing, health tourism certificate, surgeon conversations, technology verification and refund policy coordination have all been completed; the in-person visit is the remaining step.
We could have kept quiet about that. But this is a page about vetting, and a vetting page that hides its own gaps would be a strange thing to trust. When the visit happens, this section will be updated — dated.
Going forward: we plan to revisit each partner hospital annually — because a hospital vetted once is a hospital vetted then. Licences, accreditation status and refund policies are re-checked as part of the same cycle.
What We Could NOT Verify — Said Plainly
Honest vetting means being clear about its limits. Three things we want you to know we couldn’t independently confirm:
- Centralised outcome data. We asked about complication rates, enhancement rates and outcomes. What we received was verbal — from the surgeons and teams — not audited figures from a centralised recording system, because one wasn’t available to us. We found the answers credible and consistent with published norms for these procedures, but we cannot present them as verified statistics, so we don’t.
- Your individual experience. No amount of vetting guarantees any one person’s outcome, recovery or experience. Surgery carries risk everywhere, with everyone.
- Anything we haven’t seen since the last check. Vetting is a snapshot plus a revisit cycle — not continuous surveillance. That’s exactly why we teach you to run your own checks too (next section).
If a provider ever tells you their vetting has no limits, that tells you something about their vetting.
Don’t Take Our Word For It — Verify It Yourself
Everything above describes our checks. Here’s how to run your own — on our partners or any provider anywhere:
- JCI accreditation: search the hospital’s name on JCI’s public directory of accredited organisations at jointcommissioninternational.org. If a hospital claims accreditation you can’t find there, that’s your answer.
- Turkish Ministry of Health licensing and the international health tourism certificate: ask the hospital for its licence and certificate details directly. A legitimate hospital provides them without hesitation; reluctance is information.
- The refund policy: ask for it in writing before paying anything, and read what happens if diagnostics rule you out after you’ve travelled.
- The surgeon: ask who — by name — will perform your procedure, and how many of that specific procedure they’ve done. Get it in writing.
These checks apply to our partner hospitals exactly as they apply to everyone else. When we introduce you, you’ll have the hospital’s name and details — run every one of them.
Why We Don’t Publish The Hospital Names Here
A fair question, given everything above.
Hospital names and full details are shared at the point of introduction — when you ask us to connect you — rather than published on this page. Before your information goes anywhere, you’ll know exactly which hospital it’s going to, its accreditation status, and how to verify all of it using the checks above.
What we’d say to a healthy skeptic: the anonymity ends the moment you engage, at no cost and with no obligation — one WhatsApp message gets you the name of the relevant hospital and everything you need to verify it independently, before you commit to anything.
And one structural fact worth knowing: no hospital paid to be on this list. As our referral disclosure sets out, partner hospitals currently pay us nothing at all — the vetting happened before any commercial arrangement existed, because none yet does. When that changes, the disclosure page changes first.
What Would Get A Hospital Removed
Vetting that can’t fail anyone isn’t vetting — so here’s what would end a partnership:
- Loss of Ministry of Health licensing or the health tourism certificate
- A lapse in claimed accreditation that isn’t disclosed to us immediately
- Credible reports of pressure-selling, quotes issued before diagnostics, or guaranteed-outcome claims
- A pattern of complaints about consent, translation quality or refund-policy handling
- Refusal of the annual re-vetting visit
These are the same red flags our guides teach you to walk away from. It would be strange if they applied to every provider except ours.
What Our Vetting Doesn’t Mean
Our vetting relates to hospitals — not to your individual suitability for laser eye surgery.
Even if one of our partner hospitals meets the standards we’ve described on this page, that does not mean treatment will be appropriate for you. Every person’s eyes, prescription, medical history and visual needs are different.
Only the treating ophthalmologist can determine whether laser eye surgery is suitable for you following a comprehensive diagnostic assessment. Our role is to help you understand your options and introduce you to a partner hospital if you choose. Clinical decisions always remain with the treating medical team.
Ask Us Anything About How We Chose Them
Which hospital suits your travel plans, what its accreditation status is, what the refund policy says — ask before you commit to anything. That’s the entire point.