The ministry's spokesperson, Mohammad Syahril, said in a statement on Thursday (April 6) that through the scholarship, the government is aiming to accelerate the process to produce doctors and specialist doctors to address their shortage in the country.
"A new system to increase the quantity of production and efforts for equal distribution of doctors in all districts and cities in Indonesia are needed," he said.
Syahril noted that the community has limited access to doctors. Indonesia is currently facing a shortage of specialist doctors that results in long queues of patients to receive treatment and difficulty in access to doctors in all regions.
This has been caused by the lack of production and uneven distribution of specialist doctors at health facilities in the country, he said.
An update in the system is conducted through the transformation of health human resources. The Ministry of Health has initiated health transformation with six pillars: primary services, referral services, health financing, health resiliency, health human resources, and health technology.
The simplification of medical education licenses to create a sufficient number of health workers is conducted through the piloting of collegium-based medical education at six hospitals in July 2023.
"Transformation is, indeed, not easy, (as it) requires hard and smart work, synergy, and collaboration, including determination in starting and executing it. Eliminate sectoral egos. We need to think broadly, for the long term, for the benefit of the wider community," the spokesperson remarked.
Earlier, the ministry's Director General of Health Workers, Arianti Anaya, said that Indonesia is currently in need of 30 thousand specialist doctors to provide ideal services.
“Currently, there are 51,949 specialist doctors available, with a target ratio of 0.28:1,000, (thus) Indonesia has a shortage of 30 thousand medical specialists," she stated during a public hearing on the Health Bill in Jakarta on Wednesday (March 29, 2023).
Translator: Devi Nindy, Raka Adji
Editor: Tia Mutiasari
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