The Ministry Of Health's Strategy So That Specialist Doctors Don't Just Gather In Big Cities

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JAKARTA - The Ministry of Health has opened an educational assistance program for specialist doctors and dentist specialists in order to accelerate the fulfillment of health workers evenly across all health care facilities (fasyankes) in Indonesia.

"The disease that has the biggest impact on lives and costs for the people of Indonesia is the heart. There are still many provinces that cannot provide cardiac services in these provinces. As a result, if intervention is needed, they must be flown to other areas," said Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin, quoted from Antara, Thursday June 2nd.

Budi said the availability of specialist health workers in health facilities throughout Indonesia, especially for chronic diseases, was still very lacking. The reason is that many health workers are also concentrated in big cities.

Minister of Health Budi targets all health facilities at the provincial level to be able to provide heart health services starting in 2024.

"But this target is faced with years of time due to the lengthy process of medical education," he said.

The Minister of Health explained that based on data from the World Health Organization (WHO), the ratio of doctors to Indonesian citizens is one doctor to 1,000 patients. While in developed countries the ratio reaches three to five doctors compared to 1,000 patients.

Currently, the number of doctors available in Indonesia is around 270 thousand, while there are 140 thousand health workers who have a Registration Certificate (STR) and practice. This means that there is still a shortage of 130 thousand health workers, Budi added.

"The production of doctors is only 12 thousand a year, it takes at least 10 years and even more to catch up with the minimum number of doctors according to WHO standards to serve 270 million Indonesian people," he said.

As one of the strategies to accelerate the utilization of the number of health workers, the Ministry of Health in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance will provide opportunities for doctors and dentists who wish to contribute to health development in the country by opening the Education Assistance Program (PBP).

This is in line with Circular Letter Number HK. 02.02/I/1050/2022 concerning the Recruitment of Educational Assistance Program for Specialist Doctors-Specialist Dentists Batch XXIX and Sub-specialist Doctors Batch XI of the Indonesian Ministry of Health in 2022.

Budi said the educational assistance was part of the implementation of the fifth pillar of the health system transformation, namely the transformation of Health Human Resources. It is hoped that this educational assistance can accelerate the fulfillment of the number of health workers scattered throughout the country.

"This program is an aid prepared by the government in the context of preparing the Specialist-Subspecialist Medical Education Program (PPDS) and Specialist Dentist (PPDGS) as a form of support for the implementation of the transformation of health human resources to achieve the fulfillment and equitable distribution of health human resources.

PPDS and PPDGS educational assistance reaches ASN and Non-ASN with educational backgrounds at the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Dentistry in collaboration with the Ministry of Health may apply.

Prospective participants for educational assistance are prioritized for seven specialist programs recommended by government hospitals in need, especially on priority disease services and are committed to utilizing them after completing their education.

The other types of participation proposed are prospective participants from the Provincial Health Office, UPT Ministry of Health, Ministry of Defense-TNI/Polri and prospective participants after the assignment of Nusantara Sehat.

The Minister of Health asked health workers to take advantage of this opportunity well to continue to a higher level of education.

In addition to providing educational assistance, at the same time the Ministry of Health is also collaborating with the Ministry of Education and Culture-Dikti for Education Cost Assistance which can be obtained through the Education Fund Management Institute (LPDP) program.

Scholarship registration is open from 6-26 June 2022, which can be accessed through the bandikdok.kemkes.go.id page.