The South Sulawesi administration plans to recruit traditional midwives to assist in implementing free health services at hospitals.
South Sulawesi Governor Syahrul Yasin Limpo said the central government had set aside Rp 2.3 trillion from the state budget and more than Rp 100 billion from the provincial budget this year for the free health care program in South Sulawesi.
"The public need to be informed about this scheme so they can immediate seek treatment at hospitals for their illnesses," Syahrul said Thursday, following a meeting with relief agencies from the health sector in Makassar including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Children and Education Fund (UNICEF) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Syahrul said he had proposed training 1,000 village-based traditional midwives in the first phase of the scheme in the hope others would follow. Each village will eventually be equipped with a midwife to support the free health care program in 318 villages and municipalities in the provinces.
After completing their training, the midwives could help educate the community on hospital administrative procedures, he said.
The health care program was actually implemented in the province last year, Syahrul said, but his office received many complaints from the public due to problems qualifying for the free treatment.
Many people were unable to receive health care incentives from the hospitals because they did not understand the administrative procedures and lacked the necessary paperwork. Syahrul said he hoped donor agencies would direct their aid to improving basic health care requirements, such as environmental health and hospital management, in order to support the implementation of the upcoming health care program in the province.
Syahrul said there was a link between healthy environments and a successful health care program. Community awareness about the importance of healthy living was a first step toward preventing diseases, he said.
"There are two things we hope to get from donor agencies - an overall improvement in the quality of the environmental and health care. This way, hospitals can provide the maximum possible services to the public," said Syahrul.
If both these issues were addressed, he said, it would reduce the number of people even requiring hospital treatment, freeing up government resources to focus on other areas of society.
Syahrul also requested that the donor agencies strengthen coordination with the provincial administration, so the assistance program could be implemented quickly across the regencies and municipalities.
"I hope that these agencies will improve coordination so they can provide aid quickly and evenly. Aid agencies should map out a particular area and draw up a program together," said Syahrul.
Such a joint program, he said, could possibly involve designing a program to assist recruiting midwives.
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