383 Districts Have No Health Centers

Jakarta:To date, there are 383 districts that do not have health centers (Puskesmas). This means that 6.2 million people in Indonesia do not have access to primary health care facilities.

On a higher level, 42 regencies do not have hospitals, meaning that 36 million Indonesian citizens cannot access secondary health facilities.

This information is gleaned from the rural infrastructure census (SID) conducted by the World Bank in collaboration with the Vice President's Office's National Team for Accelerating Povery Reduction (TNP2K), the National Community Empowerment Program (PNPM Mandiri) and the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

They conducted a survey on 166,506 health facilities and 164,561 education facilities all over Indonesia. "People do not have alternatives. Menawhile, the available primary health care facilities are insufficient," said World's Bank senior economist Vivi Alatas in Jakarta on Dec. 18.

Vivi cited several factors causing region by region differing performances, the most fundamental being availability or non-availability of human resources and infrastructure.

Vivi believes that infrastructural problems in villages are sometimes more complex than that found in metropolitan areas.

Unfortunately, availability of a facility is not enough to provide sufficient healthcare for people. She pointed to the fact that 852 units, or nine percent of all health centers in Indonesia did not have running water installations.

Moreover, 732 health centers do not have an attendant physician, while 10,629 others do not have electricity.

In the field of education, although the nine-year compulsory program has been applied by the government since 1994, 230 districts still do not have a Junior High School (SMP). This means that 9,5 people in Indonesia do not have access to secondary education.

On top of that, around 8,000, or 36 percent of existing Junior High Schools do not have laboratory facilities.

Overall, from the level of Elementary School (SD) to Senior High School (SMA), 21,653 public schools (13 percent) do not have electricity, while another 30,207 schools do not have bathrooms with running water.

Most of the regions that lack health and education facilities are located in eastern Indonesia. "Papua does not have enough health facilities even in urban areas," Vivi said.

On the contrary, Java and Bali are equipped with good healthcare facilities right down to the rural areas.

Chief economist and adviser to the World Bank Indonesia, Ndiame Diop, said that real income of Indonesian people had increased rapidly since entering the new millenium. However, this is only applicable at the national level, but not in the regions. Each region do not enjoy show the same levels of progress. "Thi is worrying," he said.

(source: www.tempointeractive.com)