Our priority is to fill positions in areas where there are currently no healthcare workers..
Badung (ANTARA) – Indonesia’s Health Ministry has outlined several strategic measures to meet the country’s healthcare workforce needs at the 14th Conference of the Asia Pacific Action Alliance on Human Resources for Health (AAAH), held in Bali.
“For Indonesia, developing the healthcare workforce is a fundamental priority in building a stronger, more equitable, and more resilient health system,” Ika Trisia, director of healthcare human resources provision at the Health Ministry, said in Badung District, Bali, on Wednesday.
Addressing delegates from 22 countries, she explained that Indonesia had adopted a comprehensive approach to transforming its healthcare workforce to tackle challenges in the availability of health workers.
The first measure involves strengthening data-driven healthcare workforce planning to anticipate national needs. Indonesia is also leveraging international healthcare workforce mobility to strengthen educational institutions, improve professional competencies, and facilitate knowledge transfer.
The conference’s outcomes will be used to support the development of a 2026–2035 healthcare workforce management blueprint, improve the equitable distribution of health workers, and establish strategic partnerships.
Despite these efforts, Ika acknowledged that Indonesia continued to face challenges in distributing healthcare workers evenly, particularly in remote, border, and island regions. Data presented at the conference showed that Indonesia had 180,327 registered doctors, equivalent to a ratio of 0.62 doctors per 1,000 people.
Nationwide, 63 percent, or 6,520 of the country’s 10,337 community health centers (puskesmas), had met the standard requirement of nine types of healthcare workers.
Meanwhile, 80.8 percent, or 681 of 843 regional general hospitals, had seven types of basic medical specialists.
The Health Ministry emphasized that the main challenge was not simply producing more healthcare workers, but ensuring that the right personnel with the appropriate competencies were available in the right locations.
In addressing workforce shortages, the ministry is prioritizing areas with no healthcare workers at all, particularly in eastern Indonesia.
“Our priority is to fill positions in areas where there are currently no healthcare workers,” Ika said.
She explained that Java and Bali were not among the ministry’s top priorities because they were largely able to meet their own healthcare workforce needs, although shortages remained based on workload analysis.
To address areas with critical shortages, the ministry is implementing a special assignment program under which healthcare workers are recruited and deployed to priority regions.
The government is also providing scholarships to students from underserved regions, encouraging them to pursue fields of study that address healthcare workforce shortages in their home areas.
“This way, once they complete their education, they will return to their respective regions and provide healthcare services in areas where those shortages exist,” Ika said.
During the AAAH conference, Indonesia also shared its experience by inviting delegates to visit Dr. Ngoerah General Hospital, the Health Ministry’s Denpasar Health Polytechnic, and Kuta II Community Health Center to observe healthcare education and service delivery firsthand.
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Translator: Ni putu, Azis Kurmala
Editor: M Razi Rahman
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