Jokowi Calls Fulfillment Of The Ideal Ratio Of Specialist Doctors In The Great Challenges Of The Health Sector

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said that Indonesia's biggest challenge in the current health care sector is to meet the needs of specialist doctors and doctors in the ideal ratio.

"Indeed, our biggest problem is that our doctors are lacking, specialist doctors are lacking. This is a big problem for us," said Jokowi when opening the 2024 National Health Work Meeting (Rakerkesnas) at the Indonesia Convention Exhibition (ICE) Bumi Serpong Damai (BSD), South Tangerang, Banten, Wednesday, April 24, confiscated by Antara.

On that occasion, the head of state said that the ratio of doctors in Indonesia was still around 0.47 per 1,000 population, while the World Health Organization (WHO) said that each country has a ratio of 1 doctor per 1,000, so that a doctor in a country serves 1,000 residents.

Achievement of the current ratio of doctors, Jokowi continued, placing Indonesia ranked 147th in the world.

"Rangking like that, we have to know. This is what we will pursue," he said.

Previously, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin as chairman of the committee at the 2024 National Working Meeting said that the issue of health human resources was included in the agenda of discussing efforts to accelerate the equitable access to health services in all areas to be intensified, so that good access was not only centered on the island of Java, but on several other large islands.

"Equivalence of referral services through hospital network management programs is carried out to improve access to heart disease, stroke, cancer and kidney services," he said.

"This is done through the support of medical devices for 34 provincial hospitals and 514 district/city hospitals," said Budi.

Minister of Health Budi targets specialist doctors to be met in Indonesia by 2030. This target can be pursued through the academic health system.

The academic health system, he continued, was the idea of the deans of medical faculty to accelerate graduate specialist doctors.

"With this program, later the medical faculty category A, for example, will educate medical faculties outside Java so that they can build specialist doctor programs," he said.

Then they will also build hospitals outside Java so that they can become educational hospitals where specialist doctors are practiced.

Minister of Health Budi said, through this academic health system, the fulfillment of specialist doctors who should have seven in each regional hospital could be fulfilled immediately. The goal is that public health services can be served properly.