Conflict-torn Aceh, Ambon lacking specialist doctors

Debbie A. Lubis, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Health officials from Aceh and Maluku said over the weekend that the prolonged conflicts in the two provinces were hindering the public's access to government health services.

Speaking on the sidelines of a national meeting of the Ministry of Health here, the officials said much of the medical infrastructure in the provinces -- hospitals, public health centers and support clinics in remote areas -- had been destroyed, and health workers and volunteers had been forced to flee.

Cut Idawani, the head of the Aceh Health Office, said many seriously ill patients could not be treated properly because of damaged medical equipment and a shortage of specialists and other medical staff.

She said that the province, with a population of 4.2 million people, only had two government-run general hospitals and 78 specialists.

According to her, the province is in urgent need of more than 100 specialists from various fields.

"Some regency administrations have offered attractive salaries to specialists to remain in Aceh, but it seems money is not everything," she said, adding that the province still was in need of some 117 surgeons, neurologists, psychiatrists, gynecologists and pediatricians.

The head of the Maluku Health Office, Ristianto Sugiono, echoed Cut's opinion, saying Maluku had only nine specialists, with 18 others having fled the violence.

"With the health workers gone and health centers destroyed, access to health care has become very difficult," he said.

The conflicts in the provinces have also prevented health workers like midwives from gaining access to remote villages.

Both Cut and Ristianto said the conflicts had paralyzed social life and the public infrastructure, including schools, hospitals and community halls.

The two said none of the regencies and mayoralties in their provinces had kept a promise to increase the budgets of schools and health centers.

Ristianto said that in 2002, the health sector in Maluku would receive just 1 percent of the provincial budget, which would further restrict the people's access to government health services.

He also said a lack of sanitation and clean water were two more major problems the people in Maluku were having to deal with.

"You can imagine how many toilets we should build for 1,000 refugees in one camp, and how much money is needed to build them," he said.

He added that there were no reserve stocks of medicine in the regencies, and many of the people living in refugee camps were suffering from malaria and diarrhea.