Government may recognize alternative healer unions

Government may recognize alternative healer unions

A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The ubiquitous traditional healers who often conduct their trade
furtively could soon get more freedoms, as the government is
mulling over a plan to give them licenses to work openly.

Azrul Azwar, director general of the community health
supervisory committee at the Ministry of Health said here on
Friday that the government would issue licenses based on
recommendations from associations of traditional and alternative
healers.

"The centers would recommend to the ministry whether a healer
should be given a permit or not," Azrul said.

The government is slated to officially recognize 24
traditional/alternative healer associations throughout the
country next month, said the former chairman of the Indonesian
Medical Doctors Association (IDI).

The idea to acknowledge the associations so we can supervise
and monitor them, hence protecting patients from bogus
practitioners.

The country has an estimated total of 280,000 traditional and
alternative healers based on a 1997 survey.

The ministry defines the healers based on their skills (such
as masseurs), medicinal (such as those that prescribe jamu or
other herbal medicine), religious healers (such as kyai or
priests) and supernatural healers (paranormal, psychics or those
using inner energy such as reiki).

Traditional and alternative healing has for thousands of years
been part of life in many of different societies throughout the
Indonesian archipelago. When modern doctors were introduced by
the Dutch colonial government in the 19th Century, traditional
healers were by no means marginalized, because there were not and
still are not enough doctors who practice Western medicine in the
country. In fact, Indonesia is still desperately short of modern
medical doctors.

The 1997 economic crisis, coupled with the rising price of
medicines has increased the number of people relying more on
affordable alternative healers.

But an interesting trend has been recorded.

"The number of medical people, including doctors, who learn
alternative healing, has also been on the increase in recent
years," Azrul said.

Separately, Marius Widjajanto, spokesman of the Indonesian
Health Consumer Empowerment Foundation, expressed doubts that the
government would manage to establish associations of alternative
healers.

"It would be difficult to classify them. The paranormal would
also be difficult to organize," Marius told The Jakarta Post on
Friday.

He also said that the plan to acknowledge the associations
would violate Law No. 23/1992 which excludes traditional and
alternative healers from the national health system.

Instead of regulating psychics and paranormal healers, Marius
said, the government should streamline the chaotic regulations
and ethics applied to medical doctors.

Recently, a paranormal healer canceled his plan to build a Rp
10 billion (US$1.1 million) hospital, which he claimed would be
the largest in Southeast Asia, because he ran into financial
difficulties.

Tb. Barce, head of the Banten branch of the Indonesian
Paranormal Association, boasted that the hospital would have been
able to treat numerous diseases including people affected by
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).