3 Steps Prabowo Treats Indonesia's Health Problems

Paslon number 2, Prabowo-Gibran on stage after the fifth debate of the 2024 presidential election, Sunday night, February 4. (doc. Golkar)

JAKARTA - Presidential candidate (candidate) number 2, Prabowo Subianto has three moves or recipes to treat health problems in Indonesia. This was conveyed by Prabowo when responding to the answer of presidential candidate number 3 Ganjar Pranowo in segment 2 in the fifth debate of the 2024 presidential election.

According to Prabowo, the first prescription for health problems in Indonesia is the lack of doctors. For this problem, he promised to add 300 medical faculties in Indonesia from the current 92 faculties.

"We are less than 140 thousand doctors. That's the main thing. Imagine if someone had a stroke or had a heart attack, the two biggest causes of death, in some districts there were no heart specialists or stroke specialists. We will send 10 thousand smart high school graduates we will give scholarships abroad to study medicine, and 10 thousand more to learn technology science, engineering and mathematics, biology and physics," Prabowo said at JCC, Senayan, Jakarta, Sunday, February 4.

The second prescription of the Minister of Defense is regarding various adequate medical equipment. This must be spread throughout Indonesia, especially CT scans and PET scans must be found in every city/district.

"Two, there are no adequate medical equipment. CT scans, Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans, rarely in districts. We have to overcome that and we can overcome this. So the solution is like that," said Prabowo.

Prabowo's third recipe for Indonesia's health problems is to take preventive steps, namely by providing nutritious food for children and mothers, especially those who are pregnant and give birth.

"And the most important thing in preventiveness is nutritious food for children and mothers who give birth. This nutritious meal increases immunity endurance, prevents disease. This is very strategic, nutritious food for Indonesian children," he said.

Contacted separately, TKN Expert Council Member Bima Arya Sugiarto said, Prabowo-Gibran will also try to improve BPJS Health. According to Bima, BPJS Kesehatan's restructuring has an important role in increasing access to health services in Indonesia. Even BPJS Kesehatan is one of 17 Prabowo-Gibran priority programs.

"The BPJS Kesehatan also needs to be healthy so as not to lose money, the way is to increase excise duty from tobacco. This must be maximized so that it can be disbursed to finance BPJS Kesehatan," Bima said on Monday, February 5.

Another way to make BPJS Kesehatan healthy, said Bima, can be done with cost-sharing with collaborative parties or by reforming BPJS Kesehatan Perppu.

"Another way to make BPJS Kesehatan healthy can also be shared cost-sharing with collaborative parties as well as to reform BPJS Perppu in a health context," said Bima.