Indonesia Needs 10 More Years To Be Able To Meet The Ideal Ratio Of Doctors, Ministry Of Health Says

Illustration of a medical team in an operating room (Photo by Piron Guillaume on Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin admitted that Indonesia still lacks doctors. Minister of Health Budi even mentioned that it would take another 10 years for Indonesia to meet the ideal ratio of doctors.

This was conveyed by Budi during an online conversation with the Indonesian health diaspora with careers in America and Europe on Sunday, April 17.

"With a graduation rate of 12.000 doctors per year, it will take at least 10 years to meet the ratio of doctors in Indonesia," Budi was quoted as saying on the Ministry of Health's official website, Monday, April 18.

More specifically, Budi said that the ideal ratio between doctors and the public is 1:1000 people. This means one doctor to serve 1000 residents in one area. This ratio is set by WHO.

Meanwhile, the availability of doctors in Indonesia is currently only 101.476 doctors. Then, the total population of the community is around 273.984.400 people. Therefore, Indonesia still lacks around 172.508 doctors.

"Therefore, it is necessary to accelerate the addition of the number of doctors to meet this ratio. We must accelerate the work, because otherwise more people will be left untouched," said Budi.

On that occasion, Budi said the Ministry of Health was exploring cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Culture to increase the number of medical faculties and increase the production of health workers. This addition is an effort to fulfill and equalize health workers in Indonesia.

The scheme prepared by the government is to apply the concept of empowerment and knowledge sharing across regions. Each medical faculty and hospital will supervise other medical faculties and hospitals throughout Indonesia.

For this reason, in the future, the number of doctors, lecturers, and hospitals will be increased without reducing the quality of service. This addition was carried out in line with the addition of the number of study programs at the medical faculty.

“I ask for more study programs to be opened, especially the bigger causes of death in Indonesia, cancer, stroke, and heart disease. That requires any specialist, the study program must exist,” he added.