All funds for medical services easily checked, minister says

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Health Farid Anfasa Moeloek stated on Sunday that all state funds earmarked for community health centers could be easily checked to ensure that they reached their intended destinations.

"All funds are transferred from the central post office to local post offices, from which they reach the community health centers," Farid said.

"Funds no longer go through the ministry or its provincial and regency offices. The control (of the funds) now is very stringent," he said after a breaking of the fast meal at his home.

He added that all grants and other assistance were channeled directly to targeted groups by the donors.

"The Ministry of Health is only notified and gives the necessary data," he said.

The ministry, he said, had the system, the supervision structure and management of the funds.

The ministry has received Rp 366.9 billion from the budget for medical programs and trillions from the social safety net program.

Several donors have separately contributed funds and other assistance to communities, through, among others, non- governmental organizations in the form of medicine and medical equipment.

In the face of the worsening economic crisis, Farid said, the ministry was working on preparations to decentralize its management.

"That's what we're preparing now... (also) the coordination among ministries (such as) the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Finance."

He said various programs, such as the supervision of the health of mothers and children, would be decentralized.

"Such programs must be local and specific; the management must deal with details such as aspects of geography, local culture... so all this is now a 'bottom-up' approach."

The integrated health centers catering to women and children were one example, Farid said.

In the wake of alarming reports of malnutrition among children and gloomy predictions for the unborn, who have been dubbed the lost generation, health experts have raised the alarm for the urgent need to improve services at neighborhood health centers to better monitor the health of children and pregnant women.

"Our priority is to save women and children to avoid protein deficiency and other (ailments), and to prevent the 'lost generation' caused by the crisis," Farid said.

"We have conducted several programs to save women and children," he said.

Next year the ministry will launch a community health care guarantee for the poor.

The program will encourage active care promotion among the poor, rather than function as a conventional insurance program, he said, "for which we have no funds".

It will be launched in January, with preparations now underway for the distribution of funds reaching Rp 1 trillion, he said. Distribution will involve foundations, cooperatives working with community health centers, Farid said.

Areas to be allocated health funds, he said, are 150 regencies with dense populations.

"I'll box the ears of the provincial heads of offices (of the ministry) if they don't do their jobs properly," Farid said. (edt)