Health Alert! Heart Disease Claims 260 Thousand Lives per Year, Government Changes Strategy

JAKARTA - Heart disease is still a serious threat to the health of the Indonesian people.

The Minister of Health (Menkes) Budi Gunadi Sadikin revealed that around 260,000 people die every year from heart disease, making it the second largest cause of death after stroke.

The high death rate prompted the Ministry of Health to change the approach to treating cardiovascular disease.

According to Budi, the government's focus is no longer only on strengthening treatment services, but also expanding prevention efforts so that people do not get sick.

"As Minister of Health, I believe our main task is to keep people healthy, not just to cure people who are already sick. Treating is much more expensive and the quality of life of the patient will also decrease," he told reporters, Friday, July 31.

Budi explained that one of the main targets of the government in the next five years is to increase the life expectancy of the Indonesian people from 72 years to 76 years.

The target is considered difficult to achieve if the death rate due to heart disease and stroke is not successfully suppressed.

According to him, cardiovascular disease is the main cause of Indonesian people dying before reaching the life expectancy target set by the government.

Therefore, the Ministry of Health places prevention, early detection, equitable access to services, improvement of hospital quality, to strengthening human resources as the main strategies in the reform of national cardiac services.

Budi also emphasized that the development of health services should not only be centered in big cities.

"People in all regions must have the same opportunity to obtain fast and quality heart disease treatment services.

"We want every Indonesian citizen to have equal access to heart services, without having to always come to Jakarta or other big cities," he said.

In addition to expanding hospital services, the government is also continuing to strengthen routine health checks as a step to detect risk factors early.

The effort is expected to be able to reduce the high death rate due to heart disease in the coming years.

In particular, the Minister of Health said that the government targeted 136 million health screenings in 2026.

This number increased from the total of 70 million people who were screened.

The government also targets 280 million people to be screened by 2029.

Based on health screening data, the Ministry of Health found 150,000 babies in Indonesia suffering from congenital heart disease.

"The number is very large. If our rule of thumb is 25 percent of them suffer from severe congenital heart disease, that means 2,000 babies must be operated on immediately very soon," explained Budi Gunadi.

Therefore, the Minister of Health will increase the service of PCI (Percutaneous Coronary Intervention). Currently, PCI services can only be performed in 43 cities.

"Between 2019 and now, we have increased the number from 43 to 151. This year, hopefully it can reach more than 200, and then by the end of 2027 it will cover 514 cities," he added.