Indonesia Switches Priority from COVID-19 Handling to Health Service Improvement
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2 December 2022 11:43 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesia’s Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin stated that the government's priority in the health sector has been shifted from the COVID-19 pandemic handling to the quality improvement of public health services. The Health Ministry will thus allot a sufficient budget for the revitalization of health facilities and promotive and preventive programs.
“The primary focus is health service. So we will allocate a sufficient budget for the revitalization of puskesmas (community health center) and posyandu (integrated health services post), as well as promotive and preventive programs. That is one of our priorities; maintaining people healthy,” said Budi Gunadi as broadcast by the Presidential Secretariat’s Press Bureau on Thursday, December 1, 2022.
The second focus, said Budi, is to restructure hospitals throughout the archipelago in order to improve public health services, especially for deadly diseases with high costs, such as heart disease, stroke, and cancer.
“We will cooperate with the regional government, the National Police, and the TNI (Indonesian Military) so that the budget is also integrated,” Budi added.
The third focus is building the health industry which will be collaborated with the Industry Ministry.
The fourth focus is the development of human resources. In this regard, the Health Ministry will work closely with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology and the Religious Affairs Ministry to ensure that there are sufficient specialist doctors.
“There will be budget allocation, either directly through the ministry or LPDP to provide scholarships for health workers,” Budi explained.
The fifth focus is to improve the health financing system. After two years of the COVID-19 pandemic and during the current recovery, people have started to check their health status for other diseases.
“And then we have also started to prioritize future health programs based on biotechnology, information technology, artificial intelligence,” Health Minister Budi Gunadi concluded.
AMIRULLAH
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