According to reporting from BNN Bloomberg, the Indonesian parliament passed the controversial new healthcare bill on Tuesday aimed at reforming the country’s health industry and improving life expectancy despite opposition from local doctors and nurses.
Parliament approved the law in a plenary session after deliberating the bill for months.
Healthcare workers have staged protests against the new legislation on fears that policy changes allowing foreign doctors to operate in the country could jeopardize their jobs. They also argued that the deliberation process at parliament lacked transparency, report Bloomberg.
Indonesia is seeking to improve health services for its 270-million people, as the lack of doctors in remote areas and months-long wait for treatments keep its life expectancy at 71.3 years in 2019. That compares with the 76.3 years average for the upper-middle-income countries.
A number of medical professional groups have prepared a legal challenge against the law, according to Adib Khumaidi, chairman of the Indonesian Doctors Association, known as IDI, say Bloomberg.
Indonesia has six doctors for every 10,000-people, compared with neighbouring Singapore with twenty five and Thailand with nine, according to World Bank data. That has prompted many Indonesians to spend USD 11.5-billion a year to get treatments overseas.
Source: BNN Bloomberg with assistance from Norman Harsono
Photo by Online Marketing on Unsplash
