Nine Provinces ‘in Dire Medical State’
Nurfika Osman | October 01, 2010


Nine provinces have huge health problems because of a lack of medical practitioners and prevention efforts, the government says. 

Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih said on Friday that the main diseases affecting these areas were largely preventable, such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. 

“These three also account for the highest number of illnesses in the country,” she said. 

The inability to tackle them was largely because of a lack of qualified doctors and nurses, even in regions where the government had set up health centers to cater to remote communities. 

“For this reason, we’re offering full scholarships for doctors from these provinces who want to specialize and return to their provinces,” Endang said. 

The nine are Aceh, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, West Papua, Papua, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, Maluku and Gorontalo — the latter eight all in the country’s less-developed eastern half. 






Another challenge, Endang said, was to boost preventive measures in the provinces. 

“In places such as Papua and West Papua, the lack of access to health centers remains the biggest barrier, even though we have mobile clinics,” the minister said. “But these clinics can’t teach the locals to adopt healthy practices once they leave.” 

Endang cited the example of diarrhea, a common ailment in regions lacking clean water. 

“A mobile clinic can provide clean water to a village for a week, as well as medicine to treat diarrhea patients, but it can’t help the residents build a water reservoir,” she said. 

“While technically the construction of a water reservoir is the responsibility of the public works office, as health officials we need to be more proactive in helping the people.” 

These challenges threatened to set back Indonesia’s progress toward meeting the UN Millennium Development Goals on eradicating poverty and raising health standards, she said. 

Endang also called for more meetings between regional officials and medical practitioners to streamline and optimize health programs at the local level. 

She said West Nusa Tenggara had made progress by encouraging healthy living among its residents, including by rolling out campaigns to promote better nutrition for children and expectant mothers. 

In 2007, 13 percent of children under the age of 5 were deemed moderately malnourished, while 5.4 percent were chronically malnourished. This year, the number of moderately malnourished children is the same, but fewer are chronically underfed.


Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/health/nine-provinces-in-dire-medical-state/399217