Sanglah Hospital launched a clinic on Saturday which will offer medical treatment using drugs made from a variety of Indonesian medicinal plants, collectively called jamu, to provide patients with alternatives to conventional medicine.
The clinic is equipped with a pharmacy that can supply 37 drugs produced from jamu, seven of which will be sold over the counter.
Sanglah director I Wayan Sutarga said the hospital is investigating which other herbal medicines should be offered at the clinic.
Some doctors at the hospital have also prescribed phytopharmaca, a type of jamu whose curative effects have been proven through clinical tests, he said.
"We aim to encourage the synergy from treatments that combine jamu with conventional drugs that contain synthetic chemical substances," Sutarga told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.
The combination of drug therapies means that herbal medicines are now a complement, not just an alternative to or substitute for, the conventional drugs, he said.
"The combination is expected to enhance the efficacy of treatment and lessen side effects."
Many people prefer jamu because they assume that the medicines are free from unwanted side effects or exhibit less effects than synthetic pharmaceutical compounds.
The safety and efficacy of traditional herbal medicines are based on empirical data. Jamu was then developed into standardized herbal extracts through a series of pre-clinical experiments.
As pharmaceutical science developed, the herbal extracts were then improved to be phytopharmaca after undergoing clinical tests to ensure their efficacy and safety for the patients.
Sutarga said the use of herbal medicines has garnered good response from patients. Three pharmacies at the hospital have earned Rp 90 million (US$990) from the prescription of phytopharmaca during the last six months, he said.
"We're still in the initial phase of developing the clinic, but we will later provide more herbal medicines made from Indonesian plants," he said, adding that the country has abundant flora with medicinal value.
He said that Sanglah, which is the largest state-owned hospital in Bali, would continue to develop the use of herbal medicines by conducting research in collaboration with universities and other stakeholders.
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