St. Luka Clinic

The St. Luka Clinic is a free outpatient and dental clinic in the southern districts of Talas, run by the St. Luka Community Health Mission of the Syro-Iradi Catholic Church. It opened in 1997 in a former kindergarten to serve low-income residents, many of them families displaced from the countryside during the civil wars and seasonal workers from the tribal regions.^[1]

The clinic has general practice, pediatric and dental rooms, a pharmacy that dispenses donated medicines and a small laboratory. Its doctors and dentists, most of them volunteers, see patients without charge and without asking for proof of residence, which allows it to treat people from the Autonomous Tribal Regions who lack ISEZ registration. It recorded about 14,000 visits in 2023.^[1] It refers patients who need hospital care to St. Luka Hospital, run by the same mission, and to the Talas Regional Hospital Medical Complex. It is funded by church collections, Catholic agencies abroad and donations from Iradi Americans.^[2]

References

1. ^ St. Luka Community Health Mission (2023). Annual Report: Rural Health Services in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas.
2. ^ Iyık Janyl Diocesan Archives. Charitable Foundations and Hospital Registers, 1994–2022. Iyık Janyl.