A billion deaths from tobacco are a key obstacle to global development

Global health leaders gathered at Harvard University conclude

If the world’s nations are going to prevent tobacco smoking from causing one projected billion deaths by the end of this century, they must: Make tobacco control part of the agendas of United Nation’s and other development agencies worldwide; Assure every sector of a nation including health, trade and finance officials work collectively to protect not only health but the harm tobacco places on their economy by passing laws to reduce use; Place health as the centerpiece of any decision on a trade treaty that includes tobacco; Diligently work toward a goal of reducing the prevalence rate of smoking to less than five percent world-wide by 2048, basically ending its use.

Those were among the key recommendations to come out of an international gathering last week at Harvard University of public health officials, academics, and public health advocates from more 40 nations, and such international organizations as the European Union, the African Union, the World Trade Union, and the World Health Organization.

“The only entity in the world to benefit if tobacco use is passed down to the next generation of poor children of the world will be the tobacco industry,” warned Gregory Connolly, chair of the meeting and director of the Center for Global Tobacco Control at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). Harvard School of Public Health. “All other industries producing good products and services will suffer, not benefit, and the same is true for the economies of poor nations and their citizens,” if smoking is not snuffed out. This meeting was an historic step to make global smoking history,” said who two decades ago crafted Massachusetts’s tobacco control efforts.

And Dr. Douglas Webb of United Nations Development Program warned that “tobacco use poses a major health and human development threat. Avoidable and unnecessary, tobacco-linked illnesses strike people in their prime, hit the poorest hardest, inhibit country productivity, burden already weak healthcare systems, and consume scarce national resources.”

Sponsors of the unusual two-day conference on “Governance of Tobacco in the 21st Century,” at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, included WHO, the Harvard Global Health Institute, the American Cancer Society, and the Institute of Global Tobacco Control, at Johns Hopkins University. Meeting attendees were warned by speaker after speaker that unless there is a concerted international effort now, the plague of tobacco smoking that has claimed 100 million lives in the Developed Nations, will claim a billion in the Developing Nations, where smoking has yet to take hold as it did during the last century in the U.S. and other Developed nations.

But though the situation was described as dire, many nations present showed unity in passing tough national laws based on the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and demonstrated clear evidence of the scientific effectiveness of the FCTC in reducing use.

  • Dimitry Yanin of Russia announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin banned smoking in all public places beginning this past June 2013. The legislation will also restrict cigarette sales and ban advertising and sponsorship of events by tobacco companies;
  • H.E. Nicola Roxon, MP, and Former Attorney General and Minister of Health of Australia, reminded delegates to the that the Australian Supreme Court recently upheld legislation requiring plain pack cigarette packaging;
  • Dr. Eduardo Bianco of Uruguay presented data on the sharp decline in smoking through the adoption of comprehensive tobacco control measures recommended by the WHO. The decline in Uruguay is comparable to that seen a decade ago in Massachusetts, where smoking is now a rarity, said MIT professor Jeffry Harris, who has evaluated both programs;
  • Dr. Debby Sy, of the Philippines presented data on that nation’s recent successful efforts to greatly increase taxes on tobacco products, despite intense opposition from multi-national tobacco companies;
  • And Dr. Bernard Merkel of the European Union described the EU’s new proposed directive that would allow EU nations to adopt plain packaging, high taxation, smoke-free public places and proven measures.

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Other sponsors of the meeting included the American Legacy Foundation, the World Health Organization, the International Development Research Centre, the Medical University of South Carolina, the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project, at the University of Waterloo, the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, at Georgetown University, the Framework Convention Alliance of Action on Smoking and Health, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and the Southeast Asia Tobacco Alliance.

(source: www.eurekalert.org)

Gerakan 21 Hari Cuci Tangan Terus Digiatkan

Jakarta – Gerakan 21 Hari (G21H) cuci tangan sudah berlangsung sejak 2012. Hingga kini, gerakan ini terus digiatkan yang tujuannya agar semua orang selalu ingat untuk cuci tangan.

Masyarakat Indonesia kini sudah sangat menyadari akan pentingnya kesehatan, terutama kesehatan tangan. Kebiasaan sehat Cuci Tangan Pakai Sabun (CTPS) sudah mulai disadari oleh masyarakat Indonesia. Namun sayangnya, masyarakat belum sepenuhnya mengetahui cara membentuk kebiasaan sehat tersebut.

Karena itulah, Lifebouy menghadirkan Gerakan 21 Hari (G21H) sebagai suatu program aksi untuk membentuk kebiasaan CTPS tersebut. Gerakan 21 Hari ini sebenarnya sudah dimulai sejak 2012 dan ini merupakan tahun yang kedua.

Gerakan 21 Hari ini diharapkan nantinya bisa membentuk kebiasaan sehat dengan mengajak masyarakat untuk bersama-sama melakukan kebiasaan sehat ini di 5 waktu penting selama minimal 21 hari secara terus menerus, tanpa putus, agar nantinya kebiasaan sehat ini dijadikan perilaku sehat dalam kehidupan sehari-hari masyarakat Indonesia.

Menurut External Relation Director and Corporate Secretary PT. Unilever Indonesia, Sancoyo Antarikso, CPTS merupakan langkah sederhana besar untuk menjaga kesehatan diri sendiri.

“Dengan membiasakan diri Cuci Tangan Pakai Sabun, kita dapat mencegah berbagai penyakit seperti diare hingga gangguan pernapasan, ISPA,” jelas Sancoyo.

Adapun lima saat yang tepat untuk Cuci Tangan Pakai Sabun adalah mandi menggunakan sabun, sebelum makan pagi, sebelum makan siang, sebelum makan malam, dan setelah dari toilet.

Program ini sendiri merujuk dari banyak pendapat dan penelitian pakar perubahan perilaku bahwa untuk membentuk suatu kebiasaan baru yang sehat pada masyarakat luas dibutuhkan waktu miniman 21 hari untuk melakukan kebiasaan baru secara terus menerus tanpa putus.

(sumber: health.liputan6.com)

For a Healthier China

As early as 10 years ago, basic medical insurance was virtually nonexistent for China’s vast rural population. Back then, farmers had to pay every cent of their medical bills out of their own pockets.

According to a nationwide survey on medical services conducted by the Ministry of Health (MOH) in 2003, 45.8 percent of Chinese farmers refused to seek treatment and 30.3 percent refused hospitalization when necessary simply due to financial difficulty. The Chinese Government announced a plan to install the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme in October 2002.

The word “new” in this title of the reform indicates five characteristics that distinguish it from previous schemes: mainly financed by government subsidies; family-based voluntary participation; county-based fund pooling and management; mainly supporting treatment of critical illnesses; and supplemented by a medical aid system.

So far, 80 percent of the funds for the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme come from government investment. Last year, the annual premium paid by farmers was 60 yuan ($9.64) per person, which was subsidized by the government at 240 yuan ($38.54) per person. For the last three years, pilot programs on the coverage of critical illnesses, such as congenital heart diseases, childhood leukemia, end-stage renal diseases, severe mental illnesses, breast cancer and cervical cancer, have been carried out in many places and are still expanding. More than 70 percent of hospitalization expenses for the treatment of these diseases are refundable, compared with 48 percent in 2008.

More than 805 million people participated in the scheme in 2012, covering more than 98 percent of the total rural population and making it the largest basic medical insurance program in the world in terms of the number of participants.

“The Chinese Government has pooled a huge amount of money to ensure that more people, especially those in the countryside, have access to medical services. This is a remarkable achievement,” World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan told China Radio International in May 2012.

China’s urbanization rate reached 51.27 percent in 2011, when China’s urban population surpassed its rural population for the first time. The accelerating urbanization process entails innovative research and new policies so that social changes won’t affect health care provisions and the whole population can benefit from coordinated disease prevention and control efforts.

“The New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme has become the original model for China’s medical programs for people without stable employment, which has accumulated precious experience in promoting social reforms,” said Jiang Zhongyi, a senior research fellow at the Research Center for Rural Economy under the Ministry of Agriculture. He said that this scheme inspired designers of other social security systems, such as urban resident medical scheme and rural pension plans, and laid a solid foundation for the building of an all-inclusive basic medical insurance system in China.

The Chinese Government in April 2009 unveiled an 850-billion-yuan ($136 billion) three-year program for health care reform. With the funds, the government promised universal access to basic health insurance, the introduction of an essential medicines system, improved community-level health care facilities, equitable access to basic public health services and pilot reforms of public hospitals.

According to a white paper on medical and health services in China issued by the Information Office of the State Council last December, the Chinese population’s general health conditions have been ranked the best among developing countries. The report said that from 2002 to 2011 the country’s maternal mortality rate went down from 51.3 to 26.1 per 100,000, the infant mortality rate dropped from 29.2 to 12.1 per 1,000, and the mortality rate of children under the age of 5 dropped from 34.9 to 15.6 per 1,000.

A pioneering reform

“At the beginning, I was driven more by determination and courage than confidence in pushing forward the health care reform,” said Vice Premier Li Keqiang at a conference last April. At the beginning of his speech, he recalled his anxiety when presiding over the conference to kickstart the reform three years ago.

Li was entrusted with the daunting task of designing and promoting a health care reform program with the largest number of beneficiaries ever in 2008. On October 14 of the same year, a draft reform plan was publicized to solicit public opinions, which drew around 36,000 suggestions and comments from across the country within just one month.

“Health care reform is no easy task for any country, especially one with 1.3 billion people,” said Minister of Health Chen Zhu.

Between 2009 and 2012, the Central Government issued 14 documents on health care reform and more than 50 supplementary documents were issued by various government departments, which have formed a policy framework. China’s achievement of universal coverage of basic medical insurance has been spoken highly of by the international community.

“China’s health reform process, solutions and lessons will provide evidence to inform debate and, ultimately, enhance global health care outcomes,” wrote an editorial on China’s health system published by renowned medical journal Lancet in March 2012.

(source: www.bjreview.com.cn)

 

UU Pendidikan Kedokteran Ditargetkan Disahkan April

4mar

4marJakarta-PKMK. Rancangan Undang-undang (RUU) Pendidikan Kedokteran ditargetkan disahkan menjadi Undang-Undang selambatnya 12 April 2013, ungkap Syamsul Bachri, Wakil Ketua Komisi X DPR RI ()4/3/2013. Hla ini sesuai dengan tenggat dalam Masa Sidang III 2012-2013 yang diberikan oleh Sidang Paripurna DPR RI.

Syamsul selaku pimpinan dalam rapat antara Panitia Kerja (Panja) RUU Kedokteran DPR RI dengan Pemerintah, Syamsul menambahkan: “Akan repot bila sampai tenggat itu terlewati. Sebab, kita harus minta persetujuan waktu lagi dari Sidang Paripurna.”

Dengan tenggat tersebut, Samsul mengatakan, pembahasan RUU Pendidikan Kedokteran menjadi prioritas utama bagi pihaknya. “Rapat konsinyering yang dimulai tanggal 9 Maret ini, akan diperbanyak frekuensinya. Kami akan memberikan konsentrasi penuh kepada pembahasan RUU Pendidikan Kedokteran,” ucap legislator dari Partai Golkar itu.

Sementara itu, Djoko Santoso, Direktur Jenderal Pendidikan Tinggi Kementerian Pendidikan Nasional, menegaskan pemerintah akan selalu menghadirkan seorang pejabat eselon satu dalam pembahasan RUU tersebut. Pejabat tersebut bisa berasal dari Kementerian Kesehatan ataupun Kementerian Pendidikan Nasional. “Tiap pejabat yang hadir dalam pembahasan tentunya akan didampingi sejumlah staf dari kementerian terkait,” tambah Djoko.

 

Gizi buruk jadi alat politis

JAKARTA – Tidak dapat dipungkiri angka gizi buruk terus membengkak walaupun pemeritah mengklaim bahwa angka gizi buruk terus menurun. Berbagai indicator tingginya angka gizi buruk karena himpitan ekonomi, tidak meningkatnya kualitas hidup.

Seringkali angka gizi buruk dimanipulasi oleh pemangku kebijakan sehingga sering faktaa yang disajikan berbeda dengan realiasnya.

Target jumlah balita penderita gizi kurang yang ditentukan dalam Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) 2015 yaitu 15 persen dari jumlah balita, dan sampai 2012 angka prevalensi gizi kurang pada balita di Indonesia itu masih pada kisaran 17,9 persen.

Lembaga sosial The Adventist Development and Relief Agency International (ADRA) meminta data penderita gizi buruk disajikan pemerintah daerah, harus bebas dari intervensi politik.

“Data gizi buruk biasanya akan menjatuhkan seorang kepala daerah atau pihak lain, terutama saat pilkada. Pada sisi ini lah data akhirnya tidak disajikan sesuai fakta,” kata Project Manager ADRA di Gorontalo, Yosephine Sherly Bidi, kemarin.

Padahal kata dia, gizi buruk merupakan masalah kesehatan yang berdampak luas bagi masa depan anak, serta kualitas generasi penerus bangsa.

Anggota Komisi IX DPR RI Zuber Safawi mengatakan, intervensi politik dengan memanipulasi angka gizi buruk dapat menjadi “bom waktu” akibat keterlambatan penanganan.

“Dengan memanipulasi data akan berakibat pada persoalan gizi tidak tertangani secara tepat dan hal tersebut akan menjadi ‘bom waktu’ di masa mendatang karena keterlambatan penanganan gizi buruk,” ujar Zuber di Jakarta, hari ini.

Dia menegaskan intervensi politik pada data gizi buruk jelas akan berdampak negatif bagi peningkatan kesehatan masyarakat di daerah, sebab dengan data acuan tingkat gizi buruk yang salah maka akan berakibat pada penanganan yang salah pula.

Menurut dia, apabila benar ada pemda yang melakukan intervensi terhadap data gizi buruk demi kepentingan karir politiknya, maka hal itu merupakan tindakan pengecut yang mengorbankan rakyat. “Kalau benar ada intervensi pemda dengan memanipulasi data , ini merupakan tindakan pengecut,” kata dia.

Menteri Kesehatan Nafsiah Mboi dalam seminar Gizi di Jakarta khawatir, Target jumlah balita penderita gizi kurang yang ditentukan dalam Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) 2015 yaitu 15 persen dari jumlah balita.

“Tanpa kerja keras semua pemangku kepentingan, saya khawatir target MDGs itu tidak tercapai,” katanya.

Kekhawatiran itu beralasan karena angka prevalensi anak kurang gizi tahun 2007 tercatat 18,4 persen sehingga terjadi penurunan hanya 0,5 persen selama lima tahun atau hanya 0,1 persen per tahun. Dengan upaya yang sama maka target MDG’s selesai 29 tahun lagi, ini tidak boleh terjadi dan semua daerah wajib menggalang kekuatan untuk menuntaskan kasus gizi buruk lebih cepat.

“Saya minta agar masyarakat dan swasta bersama-sama mengatasi masalah gizi di Indonesia ini khusunya ibu hamil dan anak,” katanya.

Dia mencontohkan kasus kematian bayi Dera di Jakarta terjadi karena sang ibu tidak mendapatkan nustrisi yang cukup selama mengandung. “Kita juga harus memperhatikan hulunya yaitu mengenai gizi buruk dari ibu hamil,” ucap Nafsiah.

Menkes secara tegas meminta seluruh pemangku kepentingan di jajaran kesehatan seperti rumah sakit, puskesmas, posyandu maupun puskesmas pembantu lebih intensif melakukan monitoring terdahap ibu hamil dan balita dengan kondisi gizi yang pas-pasan.

“Aktifkan kembali monitoring melalui kader-kader Posyandu sehingga mereka sadar perlunya gizi yang baik bagi ibu hamil dan balita,”katanya.

Di tengah pesimisme akan target MDS yang sulit tercapai, sejumlah daerah justru berhasil menekan angka balita gizi buruk. Mereka tak henti-hentinya memberikan dukungan pada kegiatan Puskesmas dan Posyandu untuk memantau kesehatan ibu hamil dan balita serta menyediakan unit khusus utnuk menangani gizi buruk.

(sumber: www.waspada.co.id)

IT in health care is MIA

Other countries have done better at dragging health care into the information revolution, report RAND analysts Art Kellermann and Spencer Jones

By Art Kellermann and Spencer Jones

Because information technology has so quickly transformed people’s daily lives, we tend to forget how much things have changed from the not-so-distant past. Today, millions of people around the world regularly shop online; download entire movies, books and other media onto wireless devices; bank at ATMs wherever they choose; and self-book travel while checking themselves in at airports electronically.

But there is one sector of our lives where adoption of information technology has lagged conspicuously: health care.

Some parts of the world are doing better than others in this respect. Researchers from the Commonwealth Fund recently reported that some high-income countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, have made great strides in the use of electronic medical records among primary-care physicians. Indeed, in those countries, the practice is now nearly universal.

Yet some other high-income countries, such as the United States and Canada, are not keeping up. Usage of electronic medical records in America, the home of Apple and Google, stands at only 69 percent — and most of them have little to do with patient care.

The situation in the United States is particularly glaring, given that health care accounts for a bigger share of GDP than manufacturing, retail, finance or insurance. Moreover, most health IT systems in America today are designed primarily to facilitate efficient billing, rather than efficient care, putting the business interests of hospitals and clinics ahead of the needs of doctors and patients. That is why many Americans can easily go online and check the health of their bank account but cannot check the results of their most recent lab work.

Another difference between IT in U.S. health care and other industries is “interoperability.” A hospital’s IT system, for instance, often cannot “talk” to others. Even hospitals that are part of the same system sometimes struggle to share patient information.

As a result, today’s health IT systems act more like a frequent-flyer card designed to enforce customer loyalty to a particular hospital rather than an ATM-type card that could enable you and your doctor to access your health information whenever and wherever needed. Ordinarily, lack of interoperability is an irritating inconvenience. In a medical emergency, it can impose life-threatening delays in care.

A third way that health IT in America differs from consumer IT is usability. The design of most consumer websites is so obvious that one needs no instructions to use them. Within minutes, a 7-year-old can teach herself to play a complex game on an iPad.

But a newly hired neurosurgeon with 27 years of education may have to read a thick user manual, attend tedious classes and accept periodic tutoring from a “change champion” to master his hospital’s IT system. Not surprisingly, despite its theoretical benefits, health IT has few fans among health care providers. In fact, many complain that it slows them down.

Does this mean that health IT is a waste of time and money?

Absolutely not. In 2005, colleagues of ours at the RAND Corp. projected that America could save more than $80 billion a year if health care could replicate the IT-driven productivity gains observed in other industries. The fact that the United States has not gotten there yet is not a problem of vision but of implementation.

Other industries, including banking and retail trade, struggled with IT until they got it right. The gap between what IT promised and what it delivered in the early days was so stark that experts called it the “IT productivity paradox.” Once these industries figured out how to make their IT systems more efficient, interoperable and user-friendly, and then realigned their processes to leverage technology’s capabilities, productivity soared.

In America, as in much of the world, health care is late to the IT game, and is experiencing these growing pains only now. But health care providers can shorten the transformation by learning from other industries.

The U.S. government is trying to help. In 2009, Congress passed the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act. HITECH has undeniably accelerated IT adoption, yet the problems of usability and interoperability persist.

Globally, the health IT industry should not wait to be forced by government regulators into doing a better job. Developers can boost the pace of adoption by creating more standardized systems that are easier to use, truly interoperable and that afford patients greater access to and control over their personal health data. Health care providers and hospital systems can dramatically boost the impact of health IT by re-engineering traditional practices to take full advantage of its capabilities.

The sky is the limit when it comes to potential gains from health IT. According to the Institute of Medicine, the United States wastes more than $750 billion per year on unnecessary or inefficient health care services, excessive administrative costs, high prices, medical fraud and missed opportunities for prevention. Health IT can improve health care in all of these dimensions.

The payoff will be worth it. Indeed, as with the adoption of IT elsewhere, we may soon wonder how health care could have been delivered any other way.

(source: www.post-gazette.com)

Sistem Pelayanan Kesehatan di RI Masih Belum Dijamin

JAKARTA – Ketua Panitia Dies Natalis Universitas Indonesia (UI) Ratna Dwi Retuti mengatakan saat ini sistem pelayanan kesehatan di Indonesia masih belum dijamin sepenuhnya oleh penjamin dana kesehatan.

“Menurut rencana pada 2014, Sistem Jaminan Kesehatan Nasional (SJKN) akan diberlakukan untuk menjamin dana kesehatan,” ujar Ratna, saat orasi ilmiah, di Aula FKUI Salemba, Jakarta, Rabu (27/2/2013).

Ratna menambahkan, perubahan era penjaminan kesehatan tersebut tentu memerlukan kesiapan seluruh komponen pelaku kesehatan. Baik pada pasien, dokter dan tenaga kesehatan lain, serta Fakultas Kedokteran sebagai institusi yang menyiapkan tenaga dokter.

“Orasi ilmiah kali ini akan mengupas hal-hal yang berkaitan dengan sistem jaminan kesehatan khususnya dari perspektif Fakultas Kedokteran dan dokter,” tambahnya.

“Harapannya semoga kegiatan ini bermanfaat untuk meningkatkan sistem pelayanan kesehatan baik dari segi kuantitas, jangkauan pelayanan maupun kualitas pelayanan,” tuturnya.

Sekadar informasi, lulusan dokter Fakultas Kedokteran Universitas Indonesia (FKUI) melakukan orasi ilmiah yang merupakan salah satu kegiatan yang diadakan secara tiap rutin setiap tahun dalam rangka Dies Natalis Universitas Indonesia (UI) di Tingkat Fakultas Kedokteran yang ke-63.

(sumber: economy.okezone.com)

Health Authorities Step Up Measures Against Dengue Outbreak

Local Health Authorities in collaboration with the World health Organization (WHO) are working closely on strategic plans to prevent any increase of dengue fever in the country.

The Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS) earlier this week has recorded up to 223 suspected cases in Honiara alone.

The increase has forced health authorities to issue a dengue alert calling on members of the public to keep their homes and surroundings clean to destroy mosquito breeding sites.

World Health Organization (WHO) consultant entomologist Dr Chang Moh Seng said the public must alerted on this outbreak.

Dr Seng said the mosquito that carries dengue virus (Aedes) normally bites late afternoon and early in the mornings.

“The virus can only be controlled if communities agreed to working together to remove or clean up breeding sites and apply insecticides where they breed,” Dr Seng said.

Meanwhile, the Head of Surveillance Unit in the Ministry of Health and Medical Services Alison Sio said they are working closely with WHO on strategic plans to curb the increase of dengue cases.

The Ministry is sending staff to Malaita and Western provinces this week to check on the situations there.

The cases recorded so far are only for Honiara where surveillance has been carried out.

(source: www.scoop.co.nz)

Millenium Development Goals ‘sulit tercapai’ di Indonesia

Tenggat pencapaian komitmen pembangunan millenium atau Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) tinggal 2 tahun lagi, dan masih banyak target yang dianggap sulit tercapai.

Walaupun mengatakan akan terus menggenjot kemampuan mencapai target, Kantor Utusan Khusus Presiden untuk Millenium Develompment Goals (MDGs) mengàkui ada tiga target MDGs yang sulit dicapai pada tahun 2015, yaitu target penurunan angka kematian ibu melahirkan, target penurunan angka penyebaran virus HIV/AIDS, serta akses air bersih dan sanitasi dasar.

Asisten Utusan Khusus Presiden Indonesia untuk pembangunan millennium (MDGs) Diah Saminarsih mengatakan ada sejumlah faktor yang membuat ketiga target itu sulit tercapai, di antaranya pembangunan yang belum merata, buruknya infrastruktur, dan kualitas pelayanan kesehatan yang tidak sama antar provinsi.

Contohnya, daerah-daerah yang hanya memiliki satu sarana Puskesmas dengan jarak yang jauh dan kondisi jalan yang buruk menyebabkan angka kematian ibu melahirkan tetap tinggi setiap tahunnya. Selain itu kondisi ini juga diperburuk dengan kurangnya tenaga kesehatan di daerah, terutama di daerah terpencil di Indonesia.

Kondisi ini menurut Diah akan sedikit lebih baik, jika saja program keluarga berencana atau KB tetap berjalan.

“Population control itu menjadi salah satu penyebab utama kenapa angka kematian ibu terus bertambah. Karena, dengan tidak adanya KB ini sekarang, itu menyebabkan akses terhadap kontrasepsi juga menurun. Itu membuat faktor resiko ibu kematian ibu saat melahirkan meningkat. Makin sering dia hamil dan melahirkan, faktor resiko dia bertambah terus.”

Untuk mencapai tujuan MDG mengenai kesehatan ibu, Indonesia harus menurunkan angka kematian ibu saat melahirkan menjadi 102 per 100.000 kelahiran hidup pada 2015 dari angka saat ini yang setinggi 228 per 100.000 kelahiran.

Sementara itu, pencapaian target MDG terkait HIV/AIDS sulit tercapai karena, fakta menunjukan, dalam lima tahun terakhir jumlah penderita HIV/AIDS di Indonesia terus bertambah.

Saat ini, menurut data Kementerian Kesehatan Indonesia, sedikitnya ada 6.300 kasus AIDS dan 20.000 kasus HIV sejak 1987. Meskipun sulit, namun ,menurut Diah Saminarsih, pemerintah terus berupaya dan bekerjasama dengan sejumlah kementerian agar penurunan bisa dicapai meski melebihi tahun 2015.

“Kalau dari kantor kita saja, kita memilih intervensi kesehatan primer jadi kita memperkuat level Puskesmas baik dari sisi sumber daya maupun alat kesehatan dasar yang harus ada di Puskesmas, kita berusaha untuk itu. Jadi kita merekrut dan mengirim tim profesional kesehatan dari dokter, bidan, perawat dengan pemerhati kesehatan untuk memperkuat sistem kesehatan primer.”

Sementara itu upaya pemerintah memenuhi target MDG di tengah keterbatasan dana pembangunan ini diapresiasi Sekretaris Jenderal Koalisi Perempuan Indonesia Dian Kartika Sari. Terkait upaya menekan tingginya angka kematian ibu melahirkan, Dian mengusulkan agar pemerintah melakukan langkah terobosan. Salah satunya memberikan beasiswa sekolah bidan untuk perempuan di desa.

“Biasanya bidan yang ditempatkan di daerah itu ada banyak masalah, mereka harus menyesuaikan diri, mereka tidak kerasan lalu pulang tetapi kalau anak-anak di daerah itu setelah tamat SMA kemudian mereka mendapatkan beasiswa untuk menjadi bidan sehingga setiap desa ada bidan. Saya kira juga itu akan menolong mengurangi angka kematian ibu melahirkan.”

(sumber: www.radioaustralia.net.au)

Watatita: Indonesia Critically Needs Health Care Reform

Lately, I’ve been disturbed and concerned with the news about a newborn baby who died due to respiratory problems after eight hospitals in Jakarta allegedly refused to treat the child.

According to Indonesia’s Health Minister Nafsiah Mboi, the death of Dera Nur Anggraini was not caused by the lack of attention given by the hospital staff, but it was because the baby was born prematurely — she was even less than one kilogram in weight and her lungs hadn’t been fully developed.

Causes of premature birth are still generally unknown, and only 25 percent of premature babies survive. To treat a premature born baby requires doctors’ expertise, expensive medical machinery and a whole lot of money.

It is such a tragedy for the family to lose a newborn baby. Hospitals claim that they do not discriminate the patient’s social status and treat all patients equally.

However, no matter how fairly they try to treat the patients, there is still a very limited number of specialist equipment for some serious medical conditions. Unfortunately, not everyone gets to use it. Ever since the Kartu Sehat Jakarta (Jakarta Health Card) were given out, the number of patients queuing for free health care has increased significantly.

Moreover, we haven’t been implementing the right system for the patients. Many confused and desperate patients show up to hospitals which either don’t have the right facilities — or not enough rooms —and they don’t know where to go to find help.

Deputy Governor Basuki Tjahja Purnama suggested that there should be a system where hospitals should be able to contact each other regarding available facilities, expertise or rooms to serve the patients, so that they could transfer patients to a more suitable hospital. This could save so much time for patients who are in urgent need of medical care.

Perhaps both local and central government should investigate which diseases, medical conditions and hospital management issues that need to be handled urgently. After this process, scholarships should be provided for medical students to do more work and research on those medical conditions and management issues in order to increase the amount of expertise in Indonesia.

It’s time to prepare Jakarta for better health care to prevent tragedies. Better service, better expertise and better equipment.

(source: www.thejakartaglobe.com)