REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Health Ministry aims to deploy 1,000-1,250 medical specialists across various Indonesian regions in 2017 to ensure availability of equitable health services to all citizens.
The Head of Development and Empowerment of Human Resources of the Health Ministry, Usman Sumantri, on Friday said medical specialists will be posted in some 90 hospitals in 85 districts/cities in 27 provinces under the program of Compulsory Work for Medical Specialists. The process will start in March 2017.
The Presidential Decree Number 4 for the year 2017, concerning Compulsory Work for Medical Specialists, requires that all medical specialist graduates in Indonesia must serve to provide health care services to citizens throughout the country.
These 90 hospitals were selected on the basis of the state of readiness of their facilities and infrastructure to support the medical specialists' work. Another consideration was whether there were patients with specific diseases who needed such advanced care. "We visited 121 hospitals and observed the state of their facilities and infrastructure to see if it was adequate for the medical specialists' work. We also saw various cases being handled by the hospitals," Sumantri noted.
The local governments in 29 provinces, covering 113 districts/cities, had requested to send medical specialists to 144 hospitals in the regions. The ministry found 90 hospitals has having adequate facilities to utilize the services of the medical specialists.
As per data from the college, among the graduates to be assigned duties were 34 internists, 41 surgeons, 30 gynecologists, 4 pediatricians, and 18 anesthesiologists and intensive therapy specialists. Sumantri explained that currently, medical specialists were centered in only big cities and not in other areas.
Jakarta registered the highest availability of medical specialists with 66.8 doctors per 100 thousand inhabitants, followed by Yogyakarta with 36.7 doctors, Bali with 26.4 doctors, and North Sulawesi with 18.7 doctors. East Nusa Tenggara with 2.3 doctors per 100 thousand inhabitants faces the most acute shortage of specialist doctors, followed by West Sulawesi with 2.9 doctors, and North Maluku with 3.4 doctors.
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