D

isparity among regions is said to be a challenge in the country’s race to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), nearing its deadline in 2015, officials said Tuesday.

Emil Agustiono from the Coordinating Public Welfare Office said that other challenges included unequal distribution of access to quality healthcare and welfare development in general.

The goals include: improving maternal health, reducing child mortality, eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, and combating diseases.

Budihardja from the Health Ministry concurred with Emil, saying that after the New Order in 1998 ended, the distribution of health facilities and its program had been hampered.

“After the decentralization, community empowerment became a regional matter handled by the regions, so there was no strong synergy, every region had its own path.

“This is what we will try to fix,” he said.

Budihardja also added that there had been coordination problems inside the ministry.

“We have too many organs inside, and everyone is moving independently,” he said.

Budihardja said that there was the possibility the country might fail to meet the deadline.

“There is slowing down on reducing maternal deaths. This could lead to the failure of reaching the MDG target,” he said.

Current data from the Health Ministry revealed that the latest maternal death rate was 228 out of 100,000 live births, while the target for between 2010 and 2014 is 118 out of 100,000.

The media during the event’s press conference heard that currently there was an oversupply of general practitioners in Jakarta, while regions outside the capital had a doctor shortage.

During the New Order, graduates from medical school were often stationed in remote areas as part of their training.

However, the practice has been halted since the end of the era.

Priyo from the Indonesian Doctor’s Association (IDI) said that such practices should be revived as an improved version.

“The IDI recommends that general practitioners be distributed across the country with a high level of training in pregnancy and labor,” he said.

According to Priyo, the government should make full use of the abundance of general practitioners, whose number amounts up to 20 times that of pediatricians or gynecologists.

Abdul Razak from the Indonesian Mass Health Expert Association (IAKMI) said that health programs often failed to learn about the specific health conditions of regions.