Indonesia Healthcare

Indonesia is the 4th most populous country after the US, yet it is still a developing one. At present, Indonesia’s healthcare capacity lags well behind regional and international averages, with a general shortfall in the number of health professionals, medical training competency, medical technology, and in the number of hospitals or clinics across the country. According to the 2013 WHO data, Indonesia has only 0.2 doctors per 1,000 people and only 0.6 hospitals bed per 1,000 population (compared to the global average of 3 beds per 1,000 population).

Many still suffer from easily preventable or treatable illnesses largely due to the lack of access to basic healthcare. And Indonesia is just one out of the many developing countries that are facing a similar problem.

Upgrading any health system is a difficult task. These include developing new medical equipment or drugs, redesigning and making them simpler for low-income nations and cutting the cost of building and using them. They can also include organizing health services like vaccination and delivering them in completely unprecedented ways in order to reach the children living far out in rural areas. The two biggest areas in health system improvement that needs to be engaged are hospital management and foreign training partnerships.

Although Indonesia’s healthcare spending is projected to more than double in 2018, it currently spends only 1.2% of its GDP on healthcare; that is amongst the lowest GDP ratios for healthcare spending in the world. Moreover, the country recently introduced universal healthcare and aims to have all of its 250 million citizens covered by 2019. It is, therefore, crucial to eliminate avoidable hospital bottlenecks, to optimize cost-effectiveness and productivity in healthcare delivery. How to develop a more rational approach to the acquisition and use of medical devices? How to avoid wasting resources from investments in medical devices that do not meet high-priority needs, do not function efficiently, or are incompatible with existing infrastructures? But then again, the country is at this state because the privileges of such advanced medical technologies are so unevenly distributed. So how to achieve affordable cost and at the same time reap the benefits of advances in technology?

Just as important as hospital management is medical staff education and training, which is often lacking and inadequate in developing countries. In order to develop a competent and professional cadre of healthcare workers with high clinical standards, arrangements for training partnerships with countries that have a more advanced medical expertise like USA, Australia, or Singapore are crucial. Moreover, partnerships will help instill in local medical staff the willingness to acquire new knowledge and practical skills, as well as to embrace new administrative and medical technologies.

There is no doubt that all these undertakings are very challenging,