Currently, the number of doctors that Indonesia needs is around 270 thousand, as there are only 140 thousand at present. This means that we still lack 130 thousand doctorsJakarta (ANTARA) - The Health Ministrycooperates with the Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Ministry to achieve the doctor population ratio in accordance with the standard recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Indonesia.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin noted that Indonesia's doctor population ratio is still below WHO's population standard of 1:1,000.
"Currently, the number of doctors that Indonesia needs is around 270 thousand, as there are only 140 thousand at present. This means that we still lack 130 thousand doctors," Sadikin said in a press statement here on Tuesday.
The number of medical graduates in Indonesia per year is only 12 thousand. It will take the country 10 years and perhaps even more to achieve the standard set by WHO to serve Indonesia's population of 270 million, he pointed out.
Health transformation can produce a healthy Indonesian population that included increasing the number of doctors, he remarked.
Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Minister Nadiem Makarim noted that achieving the recommended doctor population ratio in Indonesia necessitates a bigger transformation initiative.
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This is done through bolstering medicinal faculty capacity and producing doctors as well as medical specialists to strengthen primary, secondary, and tertiary services.
This is what the two ministries are striving to achieve through an academic health system that prioritizes education collaboration, he noted.
One of the matters that the two ministries agreed upon is increasing the quota for the admission of medical students. Makarim deemed this to be the basic principle of health transformation.
Hence, Joint Decision Letter on Increasing the Student Admissions Quota for the Bachelor of Medicine Program, Specialist Doctor Program, and Increasing Specialist Doctor Study Program through Academic Health System between Kemenkes and Kemendikbudristek was signed here today.
Makarim noted that his ministry is committed to increasing the number of lecturers that came from educational hospitals with various initiatives.
These include expediting special lecturer identification number (NIDK) submission, assigning, and providing technical guidance to universities assigned to open the new specialist doctors study program.
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Another initiative included providing the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) scholarship for specialist doctor program students.
Makarim's ministry will bolster policies on student selection system and graduates' quality assurance through competency test in accordance with the medical education national standards.
In addition, it will formulate policies with the joint committee to fulfill medical students' rights, specifically to protect them from all types of bullying and sexual harassment.
These policies also stipulate workload and provision of incentives to specialist doctor program students that supports services in educational hospitals.
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Translator: Andi Firdaus, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Fardah Assegaf
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