Author Topic: S G K Health Insurance FIASCO - Urgent  (Read 36127 times)

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Offline farmer

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S G K Health Insurance FIASCO - Urgent
« on: October 12, 2011, 13:00:14 PM »
I know this has been discussed in several topics on this site, but I think I need to point out What happened To me Today.
SGK Health Insurance.
I went to the Fethiye SGK office this morning to apply for the SGK health insurance on behalf of myself and my wife.
Only to find my application refused. Before arriving at the office I had been made aware from other CBF posts that I would require confirmation in writing from a Consulate that 1. We were both retired and 2. Neither of us received any income in the U.K.
It was when I asked to clarify this point that the refusal came.
The office manageress produced a blue Rule Book, and showed me the Non- U.K. income.section, which she had underlined in red. It seems that any Pension, even the U.K. State pension is considered to be "Income" She then went on to say that it did not matter anyway because the SGK scheme for Foreigners had been withdrawn by Ankara in any case. It was no longer available.
Worse yet, when I asked " what about those foreigners already in the scheme " she said the scheme was withdrawn, and pointing to a pile of some 40 or so folders said
" we are in the process of writing letters to them to inform them the scheme no longer exists, even for them".
Does anyone know any better?



Offline vinvola

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S G K Health Insurance FIASCO - Urgent
« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2011, 13:26:24 PM »
What farmer says is right. We had the same problem with one of our clients this week and our interpreter went to see the manager to get the facts. There will be no more applications accepted and any who have obtained in the past will be cancelled.

Offline quackers

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S G K Health Insurance FIASCO - Urgent
« Reply #2 on: October 12, 2011, 14:03:28 PM »
They accepted my subscription this month with no problems.

Offline Scunner

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S G K Health Insurance FIASCO - Urgent
« Reply #3 on: October 12, 2011, 14:07:57 PM »
Sounds like you may have a short subscription

Offline Rindaloo

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S G K Health Insurance FIASCO - Urgent
« Reply #4 on: October 12, 2011, 15:46:23 PM »
At the beginning of the year, my husband got his name onto the Bag Kur scheme, one month later he made his first payment.  We then attempted to put my name on the scheme and were told it was on hold.  We were told we had no cover and that we should make no more payments.  We checked with Esnaf and, indeed, we had no cover.  When we finally got the Bag Kur we had to make up the missing payments (amounting to over 700 lira), for a period where we had no cover!!!  And now THIS!!!  What they are doing to us is unfair.  They are screwing us and if I put on here what I think about their system and they way they are treating us, I would be banned.

Offline tinkerman

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S G K Health Insurance FIASCO - Urgent
« Reply #5 on: October 12, 2011, 15:47:13 PM »
two prominent members of cbf were in there yesterday and were not told anything about this?

Offline Rindaloo

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S G K Health Insurance FIASCO - Urgent
« Reply #6 on: October 12, 2011, 15:51:58 PM »
If I said a "friend of a friend" was told something along the lines of farmer's post (yesterday at the SGK in Fethiye), eyes would roll.  But this has also come up on another forum.  I fear there IS truth in it.  It is very upsetting and I hope it all turns out to be a misunderstanding.

Offline The Crinklies

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S G K Health Insurance FIASCO - Urgent
« Reply #7 on: October 12, 2011, 16:39:57 PM »
I phoned the Consulate in Fethiye today and the information is correct regarding this. Foreigners current BagKurs will be terminated - at the end of this month we believe - and no new applications accepted!!
There is/was a big meeting going on today in which the Fethiye Consulate was taking part and I was advised that this was one of the subjects to be discussed.
It was suggested that the Embassy website would be updated by next week with any further news regarding this.

Offline neesie1171

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S G K Health Insurance FIASCO - Urgent
« Reply #8 on: October 12, 2011, 16:43:25 PM »
We went to the SGK office on Monday and were told roughly the same as what Kingsley has been told.  The frustrating thing for us is that we just applied to go on the system in September, they accepted me on the system and told us to come back in one month to add Charlie on. We duly went back on the 5th, found out what we had to pay and then went to Vakif bank and paid the subscription.  When we went back to the SGK office with the receipt we were advised not to delay on putting Charlie on as if we waited too long he would not be able to go on. It sounded like that the system was going to be closing again but would re-open in January.

We went to the Consul on Monday, got the documents that we thought they required and went to the SGK office to do what we thought would be a rubber stamp exercise.  No, because Charlie has a pension from the UK he is not entitled to be on the system.  We were also told about this document that Kingsley is speaking about, and were advised that every person who is a member of the scheme would have to provide this.  If they could not provide it the insurance would be cancelled, but none of the staff, including the manager, could tell us where to get this document nor what it should contain.  

The goal posts seem to move several times a day over this system!

Offline Lynda Yilmaz

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S G K Health Insurance FIASCO - Urgent
« Reply #9 on: October 13, 2011, 10:43:55 AM »
If I could add my twopenn'th to this.  We were told the same thing at the Consul and SGK in Fethiye.  Since it made no sense at all My husband (who is a Certified Interpreter and has been asked for help in this matter) contacted the SGK Head Office in Mugla he was told that in order to proceed the applicant must provide evidence that they had 'no health cover' in the UK. He tried to tell them that was an impossible thing to prove and they said this had been agreed with the UK.  The idea that there is some kind of UK/Turkish collaboration persists and he was finally told that UK citizens have to prove that they have no health care (including NHS) cover in the UK.  Which also sounded like a crock of....To get to the bottom of the UK's involvement, I wrote directly to the Health Minister in the UK. I received a reply too long to reproduce here which says in essence (and categorically) - there is no collaboration between the two countries and they don't know anything about it!  If anyone would like to read the reply in full email me on curleylcurley@aol.com and I'll forward it.  It's not a bad read actually, because I had also asked about the current law on ex pat's receiving NHS care.  So...usual load of disorganised nonsense...Just as an aside.  My husband and I also have Bag Kur and have had since 2008.  Initially, he had it and I was covered as his wife.  Then the rules changed and I had to pay my own, within 3 years the cost had gone from around 80 lira each to 180 lira each and now is around 600 lira per month for the two of us.  Suffice to say we can no longer afford to pay for it and all the money we paid is was basically wasted.  So beware!  The costs can increase arbitrarily (and unreasonably), you can never cancel it (at least if you are a Turkish citizen) and the debt stays forever~!




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