Health Ministry Sends Medical Personnel to Remote Areas
27 September 2016 12:48 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Health Ministry will deploy the Nusantara Sehat (Healthy Archipelago) team, which consists of 297 medical personnel, in underdeveloped areas. As many as 41 regents have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Health Ministry, marking a symbolic deployment of the medical personnel.
Currently, the team is being trained at the Indonesian Armed Forces Health Education Center from September 2 to October 10, 2016, and will later be deployed in 46 community health centers (puskesmas) across 25 districts and 16 provinces.
Health Minister Nila F. Moeloek explained that the Nusantara Sehat team was formed as a follow up od the Indonesia Sehat (Healthy Indonesia) program. The team is expected to improve health care in underdeveloped, border and island areas (DTPK) as well as areas with health problems (DBK).
"Through the program, the Health Ministry and provincial and regional governments are expected to improve access to and quality of health care in an integrated, comprehensive manner in DTPKs and DBKs," said Minister Nila in her opening speech, as quoted by Bisnis.com on Monday, September 26, 2016.
The Nusantara Sehat team comprises of people from different backgrounds, such as doctors, dentists, nurses, maids, medical laboratory technician, nutritionist and pharmacist, who are willing to be assigned in remote areas for two years.
Back in 2015, the Health Ministry deployed 694 medical personnel for the Nusantara Sehat program while in June 2016 the Ministry deployed 194 medical personnel to 38 health centers across 25 districts in 16 provinces.