In short
Limitation in a malpractice action runs separately according to the name of the claim and the type of institution. There is no single clock. Five years in mandate, two years from knowledge and ten years from the act in tort, and, in a public hospital, one year from knowledge and five years from the action for an application to the administration, come up. The day of knowledge is read from the document.
The clock changes with the name of the claim
The same operation can produce three separate calendars. The relationship of care between the patient and the physician is read, in most files, like a mandate. On this line the Turkish Code of Obligations provides a five-year limitation for claims from mandate, negotiorum gestio, and commission. If the claim is built as a tort, the time from knowledge is two years, and the upper time from the act is ten years. If the damages arose from an offence for which the criminal statutes provide a longer limitation, that time is discussed separately. This sentence does not treat every clinical result as an offence. A public hospital is not pasted onto the schedule of the civil courts. There, the application in Article 13 of the Code of Administrative Procedure, and the time for the action that follows, is what is spoken of.
The day of knowledge comes out of the document
A time tied to knowledge does not itself start on the day the operation ended. The moment the harm, and who might be responsible, was learned is looked for. The discharge summary, the discharge, the follow-up note, the pathology, and the later physician's explanation can pull this moment forward or back. The upper time does not wait for knowledge. It runs from the date of the act or of the administrative action. Harm that appears late does not erase the upper time. Which of the two times has expired is read together with the sentence of legal cause in the petition.
Two steps in a public hospital
A person whose right is infringed by an administrative action applies to the administration before bringing an action, the exception in the statute remaining reserved. The application is within one year from written notification or from knowledge by another means, and in any event within five years from the action. If the request is refused, the time for the action starts to run from the day following service of the refusal. If the administration does not answer within thirty days, the time for the action runs from the date this period ends. If a special statute has not set a separate time, the time for bringing an action in the administrative court is sixty days. Law No. 7331 reduced the administration's time to answer to thirty days. In applications made before the change, the old text can come up. In a full remedy claim that was brought in a civil court that lacked jurisdiction and was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, the condition of applying to the administration may not be looked for in the action later brought in the administrative courts. This exception does not excuse every wrong court.
A private institution and papers that stand side by side
In a file of a private hospital or a physician in independent practice, the court can characterise the relationship as a contract, a consumer transaction, or a tort. The characterisation changes the time. Even if five years and two and ten years are written side by side in the same petition, the judge takes one as the basis. Notice to an insurer does not itself interrupt limitation. The document that is read is the discharge summary, the consent, and the discharge note. Service shows to whom the letter of refusal went. The minutes separate on which day the complication was written. The decision has the reason state which clock was taken as the basis. An invoice can show the fee item. The invoice does not produce the day of knowledge. The register can show the institution the physician worked at. The register does not start the time.
Where the limitation file is read from
The discharge summary, the document of knowledge, and the type of institution are placed side by side. A year of limitation is not written into this note as a new figure. A public hospital and a private institution are not tied to the same clock. The office in Çankaya does not change the competent authority.
Conclusion
Malpractice limitation does not close with a single figure. Five years in mandate, two and ten years in tort, and, in a public hospital, an application of one and five years and then the time for the action, stand apart. A lawyer in Ankara does not write the year before looking at the file. The frame sits on the health law page. The separation of courts sits under which court, the public route under public-hospital compensation, a private institution under a medical error in a private hospital, and the record under preservation of evidence. The basis is the provisions of the Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098 and the Code of Administrative Procedure No. 2577.