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Healthy lifestyle movement launched in West Nusa Tenggara
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Health talks: Health Minister Nila Moeloek attends a hearing at the House of Representatives in Jakarta on March 20. (Antara/Wahyu Putro A.)
H
ealth Minister Nila Moeloek introduced the People’s Healthy Lifestyle Movement (Germas) in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, on Wednesday, as a part of the government’s efforts to improve quality of life and wellbeing of all Indonesian people.
Germas aims to change people’s behavior and encourage them to adopt a healthier lifestyle.
“Germas is a program initiated by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to strengthen Indonesia’s health development, which is based primarily on preventive and promotive measures but at the same time, still pays attention to curative and rehabilitative efforts,” Nila said on Wednesday.
Germas was launched nationally by Coordinating Human Development and Culture Minister Puan Maharani in Bandung, West Java, in November 2015.
As a follow-up, President Jokowi issued Presidential Instruction (Inpres) No. 1/2017 on Germas, which details the specific activities of the program.
“Germas is based on a spirit to increase people’s awareness to stay healthy, to adopt a clean and healthy lifestyle, and to have a willingness to maintain the cleanliness of their environment. To encourage people to care for each other and help change unhealthy behaviors to a healthy lifestyle,” said Nila.
Citing data from the National Health Insurance (JKN) program, which is managed by the Social Security Management Agency (BPJS), the minister said health problems covered by the program were mostly non-communicable diseases, such as hypertension, heart problems, diabetes, kidney failures and cancer, caused primarily by unhealthy lifestyles.
“Around 25.8 percent, a quarter of our population, suffer from hypertension, which can lead to heart problems that rank first on BPJS coverage, reaching Rp 6.9 trillion [US$518.52 million] in 2016,” said Nila. (ebf)
