Jakarta (ANTARA) - Head of Communication and Public Services Bureau at the Health Ministry, Siti Nadia Tarmizi, noted that an even distribution of medical personnel throughout the country is necessary to ensure equitable health access for everyone.Tarmizi stated that the theme of World Health Day 2024 is "My Health, My Right," which states that everyone has the right to health services, nutrition, and education without discrimination.
According to her, to achieve such a goal, access to health must be made thorough, such as by ensuring the even distribution of medical personnel. However, she added, the current ratio of health personnel to the total population in Indonesia is still unbalanced.
"If we look at it, the ratio of our doctor to the populace is just 0.47 to a thousand, whereas globally, it is 1.76 per a thousand," she said upon being contacted here on Sunday.
Thus, she remarked, some efforts were made, such as by granting 3000 scholarships and fellowships for health and medical personnel. She said that the scholarships were intended to encourage the doctors to take up specializations.
She mentioned that currently, 30 of the 38 provinces in Indonesia still need more specialists.
Moreover, she added, the ministry also pursued hospital-based education in order to train more medical and health personnel so as to push for better health personnel distribution.
"We expect more hospitals to offer such an education program. Not just the hospitals under the Health Ministry's management, but also state-owned hospitals, private hospitals, and regional hospitals," Tarmizi noted.
Other efforts include simplifying the process of registering medical practice licenses as well as facilitating medical personnel who went overseas to come back to Indonesia, adapt to their homeland once more, and work.
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She also mentioned that the distribution of human resources must go hand in hand with the improvement of facilities. As such, she remarked, the ministry pursued efforts to do the latter, such as by distributing anthropometries and ultrasound tools to public health centers (puskesmas).
Tarmizi noted that ultrasound was distributed so as to allow for early detections in order to address issues such as maternal and infant mortality at the primary healthcare level.
