Bantul Sets 12 Public Health Centers To Develop Traditional Medicine Services

Health center illustration. (Antaranews)

BANTUL - The Bantul Regency Government has determined that 12 out of a total of 27 community health centers (puskesmas) in this area are innovating to develop public services in the form of traditional medicine or using herbs.

"So far the puskesmas only use chemical drugs, but now we have determined that in Bantul there are 12 puskesmas using traditional herbal medicine for 'treatment'," said Bantul Regent Abdul Halim Muslih in Bantul, Yogyakarta Special Region, Wednesday 6 July .

According to him, the development of traditional health services is one of the mainstay public service innovations named Bantul Seroja, namely Healthy, Increased Economy Karo (with) Jamu, the innovation has been presented to an independent team assessing central public service innovations.

"We have presented how we developed the Seroja, so that it gave birth to two effects, namely a healthy effect, and an increasing economic effect. The health is that our herbal medicine has been included in the health care system at the puskesmas," he said.

However, said the Regent, all herbs or processing products from herbal ingredients for treatment have been recognized and certified by the local Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM).

"All herbs that we use are BPOM certified, and they are recommended by BPOM and approved by the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes), so we try to reduce the use of chemical drugs with long-term effects," he said.

He said, even if traditional herbal medicine was later included in the traditional service system, besides having a positive impact from the health side, also from an economic perspective there was an increase in the absorption of labor in the diversified herbal medicine industry.

"So, in the past, herbal medicine was only in liquid form, brewed directly to be drunk, now no, there are powders, capsules, then scrubs, face masks, those are examples of diversification in the use of medicinal plants and spices," he said.

He also said that the development of public service innovations in the health sector is also in line with the development that currently the use of medicinal plants and herbs as well as herbs has received recognition from BPOM.

"In the past, it was still a polemic, so it was a controversy whether it was okay to not use spices and herbs, but now it is believed that there are benefits, and it has been clinically tested," he said.