"The ministry wants to realize improvement in the health sector with socializing preventive measures by immunization and screening for early detection and awareness to protect ourselves from a disease," she said at a health talk show in Jakarta on Friday.
This effort would still pose some challenges to strengthening the health service system, such as building community participation for maintaining healthy behaviors to prevent excessive burden on BPJS Health, she added.
Soewondo said that health investment must also be carried out strategically and uniformly across all health facilities and increase the availability of doctors according to their competency. This would help ensure effective treatment for patients, especially those suffering from non-communicable diseases.
"In the future, we will strengthen first-level health facilities by providing doctors, improving competency, and improving equipment to prevent (the condition of) patients with non-communicable diseases from getting worse," she said.
Related news: Local health centers offering free screening for 14 diseases
Furthermore, advanced referral health facilities also need to analyze data from BPJS Health focusing on the biggest causes of mortality among patients suffering from non-communicable diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, and urology, to shorten the treatment bureaucracy, she added.
Meanwhile, the adoption of innovative treatments must be carried out gradually and effectively based on data on claims for causes of premature death from cancer, Soewondo continued.
"It can be realized by including all innovative medicines to a recommendation from the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) for a greater chance of treatments, whoever does the research," she suggested.
She said that her party is committed to transforming the Indonesian health system through the six pillars of transformation, namely the transformation of primary services, referral services, health resilience system, health financing system, health human resources, and health technology.
Related news: Public should switch from curative to preventive mindset: Ministry
Translator: Fitra Ashari, Resinta Sulistiyandari
Editor: Yuni Arisandy Sinaga
Copyright © ANTARA 2023
