T

he government plans to improve the roles of community health centers (puskesmas) across the country to make them more active in promoting healthcare services and focus on preventive care.

Health Minister Nila F. Moeloek said on Tuesday that the health centers, particularly those in rural areas, should be the first place to promote the importance of health care through the family approach and focus on prevention rather than wait for sick patients.

'€œThey should not just wait for patients. For example, if a patient has tuberculosis, the doctors should take care not only of them but also should go to their family to check whether any members have the disease,'€ Nila told a press conference.

She added that the focus on preventive care was an instruction from President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo, who pointed out that prevention was better than cure.

Nila went on to say that the ministry had been allocated Rp 17.2 billion (US$1.24 million) for the preventive-promotive program out of the Rp 104 trillion it would receive for health care from this year'€™s state budget.

The ministry'€™s director general for nutrition, infant and maternal health, Anung Sugihantono, said the ministry this year would focus on 472 health centers in nine provinces and 64 regencies out of a total 9,500 across the country. They will receive Rp 40 million in additional funds from the ministry.

'€œThose health centers should make more efforts or make programs on how to decrease the infant and maternal mortality rate,'€ Anung said.

Indonesia is among the countries where the maternal mortality rate rose between 2007 and 2012, from 227 per 100,000 live births to 359, an increase partly blamed on a lack of healthcare services and facilities across the archipelago.

Out of 9,500 health centers, only 1,000 of them have proper facilities for patients.

To support the plan, Anung said the ministry would also improve infrastructure and equip health centers with better in-patient facilities so that people could avail of medical treatment.

'€œWe aim to make the health centers more attractive and provide more facilities,'€ Anung said.

In Tarakan, North Kalimantan, he said, health centers were in modern buildings and had the same facilities as hospitals.

The government also wants the centers to become primary healthcare centers that people choose to patronize rather than hospitals.

However, the ministry'€™s head of human resources development agency, Usman Sumantri, acknowledged that inadequate facilities and services at community health centers were also caused by the uneven distribution of health workers.

He said that 23 percent of all community health centers did not have permanent doctors. '€œWe therefore plan to send more doctors to rural areas through our Nusantara Sehat program,'€ Usman said.

Last year, the ministry sent 695 medical workers, mostly doctors, to 120 community health centers in remote areas in more than 15 provinces. This year, it aims to send 1,200 more medical workers.

'€œThe workers should have adequate skills to develop healthcare programs at the community level, ranging from health promotion to disease prevention and control,'€ Usman said. (foy)