Wamenkes: Every Year We Lose 11.5 Billion US Dollars Because Many Indonesians Go Abroad For Treatment

Deputy Minister of Health Dante Saksono Harbuwo during a public lecture at the 31st Congress of the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) and the 22nd Indonesian Doctor's Wives Association (IIDI) in Banda Aceh, Thursday (24/3/2022). (ANTARA/Khalis Surry)

BANDA ACEH - The Ministry of Health said that there are a million Indonesian citizens who undergo treatment abroad every year, especially to three destination countries including Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

"Every year we lose 11.5 billion US dollars because many Indonesians, around 600 thousand to 1 million people seek treatment abroad," Deputy Health Minister Dante Saksono Harbuwo said in Banda Aceh as reported by Antara, Thursday, March 24.

This statement was made by Dante Saksono Harbuwo on the sidelines of a public lecture at the 31st Congress of the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) and the 22nd Indonesian Doctor's Wives Association (IIDI) in Banda Aceh.

Therefore, said Dante, the government through the Ministry of Health is committed to carrying out a health transformation, one of the pillars of which is improving the quality of referral services in order to reduce the number of people seeking treatment abroad.

"We have to improve the quality of referral services, we have to improve public trust, so that we can reduce the number of people who then seek treatment abroad," said Dante.

According to him, the transformation of referral services will focus on mortality from major diseases such as stroke, heart disease, diabetes mellitus, cirrhosis, tuberculosis and several other diseases.

“This (disease) is allegedly causing many people to seek treatment abroad. We will try to reduce the number of medical treatments abroad," he said.

Dante said that increasing access to hospital services is very important in providing the best health services for the people of the country.

Starting in 2021, he said, his party will build a primary hospital for underdeveloped areas, borders and outer islands. In fact, the Ministry of Health has also prioritized the construction of more than 100 hospital units until 2024.

"We have built several hospitals, and we are prioritizing that until 2024, several hospitals will be built in border areas, the outer islands, up to more than 100 hospitals," he said.

As many as 95 percent of these services should be referred to the hospital that we built so that referral funds are under control, he said.

This commitment is outlined by the Ministry of Health in the six pillars of health transformation, namely primary services in the form of handling immunization, health screening, stunting, as well as Maternal and Child Health (KIA) and Family Planning (KB).

Next is the referral service pillar, namely the handling of nine priority diseases with the highest mortality, then the health resilience pillar, namely the research and industrialization of drugs and medical devices in the country.

Furthermore, the health financing pillar focuses on financing based on basic health needs, the health human resources (HR) pillar, namely the production and distribution of a shortage of 172 thousand doctors, and the health technology pillar in the form of the application of digital technology and biotechnology.