Doctor Bumiputra's Small Salaries: Implementing Free Will From Dutch Colonialism

The portrait of the Bumiputra Doctor Education School (STOVIA), the forerunner of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia, Salemba. (Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - Doctors were a limited profession in the Dutch colonial era. Especially for the bumiputras. Those who get access to the Bumiputra Doctors Education School (STOVIA) are limited to priyayi children. Even then, they often receive all kinds of discrimination from the invaders.

Life is not even better when they start their career as doctors. Mainly those who participate in the movement. Their practice is made difficult. Even the Bumiputra doctor receives a small salary compared to the white doctor (Netherlands).

The availability of health workers is often a serious problem in the Dutch East Indies. The doctors who served were limited to the Dutch. There are no natives. However, the presence of the epidemic --pouses to pes changed everything. Dutch doctors did not want to go directly to the villages.

The Dutch government racked their brains. They founded the Javanese Doctor School, then became known as STOVIA in Batavia. The Bumiputras also had their first chance as medical students. Even though it is limited to priyayi children.

far from fire. Those who enter will not only receive medical education, but also discrimination from the Dutch. Prospective doctors are not allowed to wear European clothing. They are forced to wear their respective regional clothes, except those that are Christian. Later the regulation was revised.

They are also prohibited from celebrating religion during education. In order to ensure that discrimination regulations are enforced, the owner has the power to perpetuate punishment for those who violate the rules. Differences in facilities do not only appear among schools. Discrimination appears outside of school. When taking the train, for example.

Candidates for Bumiputra doctors are not privileged at all. They are prohibited from sitting in first class. Even though their position was needed at that time. The only privilege they get in education may be just the courage to inflame Indonesia's independence.

After completing the school, STOVIA graduates, especially those who graduated from the Javanese Doctor School -- STOVIA before 1900 -- were never able to get the socio-economic reward they expected. Until the early 20th century, the position of Javanese doctor in government was considered the same as the position of a mantri. Their main role as vaccinators does not foster respect like that of graduates of the Civil Servant School (OSVIA) who work in indigenous administrative posts, "wrote Yudi Latif in the book Educational Empowerment (2020).

Instead of tasting comfort, all doctors who graduated from STOVIA actually had to fight with the ferocity of life. Mainly for those who are known to be active in the world of politics. Their lives were deliberately allowed to be disturbed by the Dutch.

The Dutch perpetuated their power by giving small salaries to the Bumiputra doctor. The salary received is too high in the style of level. Alias is not enough to cover the daily needs of doctors. Not to mention that the Dutch used their power to make it difficult to develop the practice of the Bumiputra doctor.

Those involved in the movement against Dutch colonialism were immediately ostracized. Doctors who took part in the movement were considered a bad reputation for all residents of the Dutch East Indies. People think that if they seek treatment, they are considered to have collaborated with the movement against the Dutch.

It was this image that made the local private doctor praised by the existing patients. Moreover, the Dutch themselves did not want to write recommendations for them to be involved as government or royal doctors.

This status made them continue to struggle to achieve equality. The bumiputras, including the freedom fighters Bahder Djohan, felt that the issue of salary was not just a matter of money, but as a matter of self-respect and dignity of the bumiputras. They did not want to be treated badly continuously by the invaders.

The width of the gap in discrimination received by the bumiputras is what further raises the guts of the national revival. The educated doctors chose to move to escape the shackles of Dutch colonialism. The struggle of the doctors proved effective. They are considered to trigger the initial spirit of independent Indonesia.

In addition to working as a doctor in a general hospital then known as CBZ, Bahder Djohan was also active in a medical organization. Bahder Djohan was chosen as secretary of the association at a doctor named Vereeniging van Indonesische Geneeskundigen (VIG) from 1929-1939. As secretary of the medical association, Bahder Diohan has always fought for the imbalance in salary regulations held by the colonial government.

A native doctor only gets a salary of 50% from a Dutch doctor's salary, even though his skills and diplomas are the same. This tendency cannot be accepted by Bahder Djohan, the problem is not only about the amount of money, but the issue of dignity or self-esteem. Bahder Djohan feels that his dignity as a person or as an indigenous person is humiliated by the colonial government," said Mardanas Safwan in the book Prof. Dr. Bahder Djohan: Work and Service (1985).