Bracing for a stream of foreign medical
professionals entering the country after the implementation of the ASEAN
Economic Community (AEC), the government is devising a set of incentives to
encourage local specialists to work in the regions.
The Health Ministry hopes the incentives will
lure surgeons, pediatricians, internists, obstetricians and anesthetists to
areas in short supply of specialists for at least a year.
The plan also aims to keep local specialists
competitive compared to the foreign doctors that will soon be allowed to move
freely between countries in Southeast Asia.
The ministry’s Director General of Community
Services, Bambang Wibowo, when opening the Indonesian Medical Council (KKI)
national coordination meeting in Surabaya, East Java, said foreign doctors
would make efforts to take over regions in Indonesia that have a shortage of
doctors.
“The number of specialists is very limited in
those regions, especially in the eastern part of Indonesia as well as in border
regions and on islands. This requires awareness of the doctors that they are
needed there,” said Bambang Wibowo in Surabaya on Tuesday.
Indonesia, according to Bambang, has become a
lucrative market for players in the health service. Doctors are still in short
supply at many of the country’s 9,754 community health centers (Puskesmas) and
2,573 hospitals. Moreover, the population of Indonesia is estimated to reach
270 million people in 2020, which would include a significant number of
middle-income earners able to afford private health care.
The policy to assign specialists to areas
that lack doctors for at least a year is backed up by an existing program to
assign teams of newly-graduated physicians, dentists, midwives and health
analysts to remote areas in a bid to cover the shortage of doctors in
Indonesia.
Based on KKI data, Indonesia currently has
175,410 registered doctors, 31,414 of whom are specialists.
KKI chairman Bambang Supriyatno said synergy
between all stakeholders was needed to address the issue.
“This month, we will discuss domestic
regulations in response to the potential and threat of the influx of foreign
doctors to Indonesia,” said Bambang.
At the same occasion, University of Defense
professor Rear Admiral (ret.) Setyo Harnowo said Indonesia faced no obvious
military threats from outside in the next 10 years, but it faced non-military
ones instead.
“Indonesia is facing the threat of a proxy
war, or a weakening of the nation using non-military means, such as economic
and health threats, and the health threats must be faced by those in the health
sector,” said Setyo.
Separately, House of Representatives
Commission IX chairman Dede Yusuf Macan Effendi, who also spoke at the forum,
said he was encouraging the Health Ministry and KKI to maintain an equal
distribution of doctors across Indonesia.
The Democratic Party politician related his
experience in meeting with the regent of Membramo in Papua, who he said was
willing to provide Rp 50 million as “settling-down” cash, aside from regular
income and other facilities, to specialists willing to serve in the regency.
“Seeing that the administration is willing to
give Rp 50 million, imagine the desire of the regency to have specialists
there,” said Dede.
Dede urged KKI to encourage the presence of
medical schools in regions with a shortage of doctors, because doctors
generally gathered in campuses with medical schools.
Wahyoe Boediwardhana
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