I

n a bid to upgrade the quality of medical staff in primary healthcare facilities, the government and 18 universities around the country will begin providing specialized education to medical students and practitioners next year.

The Health Ministry'€™s expert staff member for health services development, Akmal Taher, said on Wednesday that the government would train 300 community health center
(Puskesmas) doctors throughout Indonesia in 2016.

There are 107,000 primary care physicians in the country at present, with the government estimating it needs 40,000 physicians to undergo training and education tailored specifically to primary health care.

'€œThe Health Ministry will start from Puskesmas with 300 doctors,'€ he told reporters at a discussion at the University of Indonesia (UI) in Jakarta. '€œOther doctors who have been working for at least five years with no bad record could immediately join the program as well.'€

Experienced primary medical facilitators will be trained for a maximum of six months.

Further, 16 universities, including Atmajaya University, Tarumanagara University, Padjadjaran University and Gadjah Mada University, will begin offering three-year postgraduate programs in 2016 to train medical students to be proficient in providing primary medical services, especially preventative measures, which will be the main focus of the government in coming years.

In 2017, two more universities, Muhammadiyah University in Yogyakarta and Yarsi University in Jakarta, will follow suit. The training tailored specifically to primary care practitioners will emphasize the importance of preventative measures. By ensuring their assigned communities stay healthy, primary medical officers will be able to earn additional income through a capitation system.

Capitation is a payment arrangement for health-care service providers such as physicians or nurses. The government pays a physician or group of physicians a set amount for each enrolled person assigned to them, per period of time, whether or not that person seeks care.

According to Akmal, the system will urge primary care physicians to promote preventative measures to the communities they are assigned to, as they will receive more money from the capitation system if fewer people seek medical care.

Ratna Sitompul, the dean of UI'€™s medical school, said that the school, which works together with the government, would design the program by emphasizing on-the-job training.

'€œDuring the transition period of this primary medical education, we will focus more on existing general practitioners. The training will be designed so they will not have to leave their jobs,'€ she said on Wednesday.

By boosting the quality of primary care physicians, the government is expecting to see at least a 10-percent reduction in the number of patients in hospitals, some of which are experiencing over-capacity problems.

'€œAs many as 31 percent of patients in primary health care are being referred to hospitals [secondary health care], which causes hoards of patients to swarm at hospitals. Illnesses that should not have been referred to secondary health services are instead being referred [due to inadequate primary care practitioners],'€ Health Ministry human resources development head Usman Sumantri said on Wednesday.