The Indonesian Health Ministry has asked local governments to regulate the placement of health workers based on the staffing needs at healthcare facilities.

“There are many health workers who are still unfit in the (staff) formation. We do not know what are the regional governments’ considerations,” director general of health workers at the ministry, Arianti Anaya, said at a press conference in Jakarta on Thursday.

For example, a community health center (puskesmas) whose staff consists of nine members, eight of whom are nurses, when in fact, puskesmas also need midwives, nutritionists, environmental health officers, pharmacists, and health promotion officers.

Out of around 80 thousand puskesmas in Indonesia, only 15 thousand to 20 thousand, or around 25 percent, have the right staff composition according to their needs, Anaya pointed out.

In addition, there are still around 500 puskesmas that do not have doctors and about 50 percent of them do not have health workers.

According to her, incomplete health worker staffing has also been observed at around 3,800 regional public hospitals or RSUDs.

Therefore, Anaya asked the regional government and related agencies to fulfill the staffing requirements at health service facilities according to their needs.

She said that the central government wants each puskesmas to have the required staff members, including general practitioners, dentists, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, nutritionists, environmental health officers, community health officers, health promotion officers, and medical laboratory technology experts (ATLM).

RSUD staff must at least include seven basic medical specialists, namely internal medicine specialists, obstetricians, pediatricians, surgeons, radiologists, anesthesiologists, and clinical pathologists.

Anaya also informed that currently, the number of non-state civil apparatus health workers has reached 484,052, including 457,517 health workers in the local government sphere and 23,917 health workers at ministries/agencies.

In 2022, the number of applications for health workers’ posts reached 88,370, with local governments proposing the recruitment of 80,049 health workers and ministries/agencies proposing the recruitment of 8,321 health workers.

Anaya said she hopes that in the future, local governments would fill staff positions at puskesmas and hospitals based on their needs.

Source: Antara News