Meuraxa Hospital Banda Aceh Deficit 11 General Doctors

Photo by Lucas Santos on Unsplash

BANDA ACEH - Meuraxa Hospital in Banda Aceh still lacks general practitioners. Hospital managers often rotate between doctors so that they can still provide services to residents.

Director Dr. Riza Mulyadi said Meuraxa Hospital has around 60 specialist doctors with various scientific fields and 24 general practitioners. This figure needs to be added to optimize services.

"Perhaps there are still lacking, general practitioners, a total of 27 doctors now, but there are three schools and have graduated for specialist doctors, so there are 24 doctors left," said Riza.

He explained that Meuraxa Hospital ideally has as many as 35 general practitioners. So far, his party often rotates between rooms doctors to provide maximum service to the community.

As it is today, general practitioners in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) room, Intensive Coronary Care Unit (ICCU) room to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) must be rotated to assist services at the Emergency Installation (IGD) due to lack of general practitioners.

"This Meuraxa Hospital, if we add 10 general practitioners, we can say it's ideal. So around 35 general practitioners at least, we can only do services optimally," said Rizal.

His party has submitted additional doctors to the government. As a result, he said, the Ministry of Health through the formation of Government Employees with Work Agreements (PPPK) will also immediately distribute as many as 20 general practitioners to Meuraxa Hospital, which is expected to start serving in March 2023.

"With this PPPK personnel, I hope that this is one of the ways taken by the Ministry of Health to overcome shortages. So it is immediately given to places in need, which is actually more effective. If this PPPK doctor starts to be distributed to us, then we will be greatly helped," he said.

On the other hand, Riza said that Meuraxa Hospital still lacks specialist doctors for pain treatment. Because the government hospital is trying to develop pain treatment with intervention techniques.

"Now there is only one doctor, at the beginning we can still handle this. We continue to develop this because we want Meuraxa Hospital in the future to become a special pain treatment referral center with intervention techniques, so ideally at least two doctors," he said.

Separately, Deputy Dean I of the Faculty of Medicine, Syiah Kuala University (USK) Dr dr Safrizal Rahman M Kes SpOT assessed that there are still many shortages of doctors in Aceh. One hospital in the area is not enough to only have one specialist doctor from each field.

Currently, according to him, when the hospital already has an obgyn specialist, there must be specialists such as oncology to deal with tumors, cancer and so on. Then when there is a pediatrician, you must develop into a pediatrician who handles children's heart, infections, neonatus, and other problems in children.

"Of course we are moving towards it. Today for basic specialists, Insha Allah in districts/cities in Aceh is already equipped. But we already have to move to non-basic specialists and supporting specialists who have many cases in the community," he said.