Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
The Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) said that one of the reasons the government made it easier for foreign nationals to become health and medical workers in Indonesia was because they were expected to be able to fill the vacant positions for health workers in frontier, remote, and underdeveloped (3T) areas.
Director of Empowerment of Health Workers of the Ministry of Health Anna Kurniati said that until now there are still many Indonesian health and medical workers who are reluctant to be distributed in 3T areas.
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“The disparity still exists in areas where our health workers are not interested, such as remote areas. If it is then not in demand, why not if there are foreigners who want to go there, right,” said Anna when met after the socialization of the Health Bill in South Jakarta, Friday (31/3).
Anna said that so far there have been no interested hospitals, such as in Papua and West Kalimantan. Even though they have opened job vacancies through various platforms. One of their solutions is then to question whether foreigners can register and later practice there.
“Some of them have asked us, ‘may this foreign doctor want to go there, can they come in or not?’
Anna said that one of the government’s intentions was to simplify foreign health workers in Indonesia because currently many people choose to seek treatment abroad, such as Malaysia and Singapore.
According to him, this discourse is also one of the efforts to meet the need for specialist doctors in Indonesia, which according to him is still minimal. According to him, Indonesia currently only has 51,949 medical specialists with a target ratio of 0.28:1,000.
Thus, Indonesia still lacks 30 thousand specialist doctors in 21 specialist study program providers.
Even within the provincial scope, only 40 percent of RSUD do not yet have a complete set of seven types of basic medical specialists, such as obstetricians, pediatricians, anesthesiologists, and surgeons, radiology, then clinical pathologists.
“So that our money also goes there. So, how can we make services that are in demand by our people abroad in Indonesia,” he continued.
Furthermore, Anna said that the Ministry of Health through the Health Bill intends to simplify the requirements for foreigners and Indonesian citizens graduating from abroad, aka the diaspora, to work in Indonesia.
According to him, the Ministry of Health has also prepared a thorough competency evaluation and adaptation program. Later, both diaspora and foreigners must have a valid Registration Certificate (STR) and Practice Permit (SIP) within a certain time limit.
Anna explained that this adaptation program aims to make foreigners and diaspora learn about different types of endemic diseases, even tropical and sub-tropical diseases that they may have never treated.
“And actually in the previous law foreigners could also enter, but the arrangements were very complicated so no one could enter. Now, we are making clearer arrangements and applying them more fairly,” said Anna.
(khr/pmg)
(Gambas:Video CNN)