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May 05, 2025
By the Philips Foundation team
Over the past decade, Philips Foundation has worked to improve access to quality healthcare for communities across the Middle East and Türkiye − advancing meaningful, long-term impact across the region.
With over 300 initiatives and growing investments in social enterprises, Philips Foundation is making a broad and profound impact – advancing early disease detection, prevention, and care for those who need it most. In just one year, the Foundation provided access to care for 46.5 million people in some of the most underserved regions across the globe, including areas in the Middle East and Türkiye. This region is home to countries with varying levels of healthcare infrastructure, where access to quality services is often limited by economic hardship, educational gaps, gender inequality, and conflict. To address these disparities, the Foundation designs targeted programs that respond to urgent health challenges while also strengthening long-term patient outcomes. In Türkiye, for example – where over 13,000 children are born each year with congenital heart conditions – the Foundation is prioritizing initiatives to improve childhood cardiac health [1]. “Today, the Foundation’s impact is both immediate and enduring – saving lives, building healthier futures, and driving sustainable change in communities that need it most,” says Margot Cooijmans, Director of the Philips Foundation. Improving access to antenatal care in Yemen Yemen’s healthcare system has been severely impacted by years of civil war and conflict, leading to a significant increase in maternal and infant mortality rates [2]. To improve access to quality care, Philips Foundation, in partnership with Save the Children, has equipped nine community centers with Philips mobile ultrasound devices and provided training for midwives in the community. These centers are able to provide improved maternal care for over 53,000 patients per year, including many in remote areas where access to healthcare is much more limited.
Thanks to the mobile ultrasound, more women in Yemen now have access to the vital healthcare they need during pregnancy and childbirth, while the knowledge gained by midwives can have a lasting impression on mother and childcare in underserved communities in Yemen. Each midwife is linked to a chief physician in each of the village’s community centers, allowing them to continue to learn. Promoting awareness for congenital heart disease Philips Foundation aims to support awareness as well as treatment. With early diagnosis and intervention, more than 90% of children born with congenital heart disease in Türkiye can survive, yet most people are unaware of these life-threatening conditions. To address this issue, Philips Foundation partnered with Children Heart Health Foundation to launch an awareness campaign around congenital heart disease, featuring real-life stories. One of such stories is from 6-year-old Cinar who describes living with the disease like having a zoo in his heart and 25-year-old Ibrahim, who was diagnosed with heart disease when he was only 30 days old. The campaign was promoted across multiple social media platforms, resulting in a reach of over 7.1 million. It was also covered in national print media. By raising awareness, the campaign encourages more individuals to seek treatment that can significantly improve their quality of life. To complement the campaign, the Foundation provided ultrasound devices to the Department of Pediatric Cardiology at Istanbul’s Capa Medical Faculty to ensure more children receive timely diagnosis and treatment.
Providing critical medical equipment Philips Foundation also supports communities in times of emergency, providing access to care to those most in need. Following the devastating earthquake in Türkiye and Northern Syria in 2023, the Foundation provided critical medical equipment, including mobile ultrasound units that offer diagnostic capability to any compatible smartphone or handheld device, as well as patient monitors. This equipment enabled healthcare professionals to effectively triage, evaluate, and treat trauma patients in urgent situations, as part of the Foundation’s broader earthquake relief efforts in the region. The next decade “Following ten years of impact, Philips Foundation is also looking to the future,” Margot Cooijmans concludes. “We continue to build on the success of the past decade, but we cannot do it alone. Our partners’ expertise plays a vital role in strengthening healthcare systems and supporting communities around the world.”
The challenge is immense, but so is the opportunity.
Let's take them on together.
--- [1] Lancet (2020). Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories
[2] UN OCHA (2022). Yemen humanitarian needs overview 2022
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