"The lack of medical specialists is a real problem. To this day, the people face a tough time in having access to doctors," Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin noted through a press statement on Monday evening.
The lack of medical specialists in Indonesia has resulted in long patient queues, and it also poses a problem in distributing doctors to various regions, he pointed out.
To expedite the process, the ministry has increased the education scholarship quota for medical specialists in 2023 to 1,600 recipients, from 600 recipients last year, he noted.
The scholarship is intended for doctors, dentists, subspecialists, fellowships, and other health human resources, he elaborated.
Director general of health workers at the ministry Arianti Anaya noted that the dearth of medical specialists was caused due to less number of them being produced, thereby increasing the difficulty for distributing doctors to all health facilities in Indonesia.
To address this issue, the ministry conducts efforts to facilitate the transformation of human resources in the health sector, she remarked.
This includes updating the system to increase the number of medical specialists produced and step up efforts to distribute them across all districts and cities in Indonesia, she noted.
The ministry and LPDP continue to increase the number of recipients for medical specialist education scholarship, from 300 to 600 people in 2022.
This figure continues to be increased in 2023 to 1,600 people, and 2,500 scholarships will be provided for medical specialists and sub-specialists, including overseas graduate fellowships in 2024.
"The existence of this education scholarship can expedite the fulfillment of the number of health workers, specifically medical specialists that can be equally spread across all of Indonesia in the future," she remarked.
Related news: More specialist doctors proof of healthcare transformation: Minister Related news: Papua needs more specialists to improve health services: official
Translator: Andi Firdaus, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Azis Kurmala
Copyright © ANTARA 2023
