Govt prepared to admit value of traditional medicine

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Health Sujudi disclosed on Saturday that the government is prepared to recognize the practice of traditional medicine even as far as integrating it with its own health services alongside conventional medicine.

For this Indonesia will turn to China, which has already incorporated traditional medicine into its health services system.

Sujudi told reporters at Soekarno-Hatta airport on Saturday after returning from a visit to Mongolia and China that he was impressed by the major role played by traditional remedies in China in providing sound treatment to patients.

"The ministry will soon send pharmacologists to China to study how they have been able to integrate the conventional and traditional healing methods and possibly establish a special agency to explore new ideas and possibilities for such a project," he said.

"This does not necessarily mean that we will adopt their methods, thus opening a new market for them, but more to learn how they have manage to integrate both methods in their human resources, hospital, medication and educational institutions."

Traditional healers, who have long been eclipsed by the rise of modern and conventional medicine, have undergone a resurgence in popularity in Indonesia in recent years not because they are cheaper but rather that they have proven effective in treating diseases which were thought to be incurable by conventional medicine.

Despite their increasing popularity, their practice has not yet been given the official seal of approval.

Sujudi admitted that unlike Indonesians, the Chinese have long appreciated traditional methods as a complement to the conventional medicine imported from the West.

"To us, traditional methods are still seen as a second choice after all efforts at conventional treatment are exhausted ... So we have to make extra efforts to get accustomed to these traditional medicines," he said.

During his six-day trip to China, Sujudi said he witnessed the use of both conventional and traditional medicines at China's most modern Beijing Hospital.

There, patients are allowed to choose their preferred method and doctors can specialize in either method, whose curriculums are both incorporated in medical schools.

"A doctor can chose to be a western-style medical doctor or a traditional medical doctor and each hospital can choose how to develop its own methods of traditional treatment," he said.

Beijing Hospital, he said, has some 200 traditional pre- processed medicines and more than 400 which are unprocessed.

The Indonesian government has long contemplated stepping up efforts to develop traditional herbal medicines, better known as jamu, which received support from experts including pharmacologist Sardjono Oerip Santoso from the University of Indonesia, and the Indonesian Medical Association (IDI).

Sardjono in a scientific paper last year pointed out that 940 of the 7,000 cultivated plants in Indonesia have been used as medicinal plants.

The ministry later declared it would study the traditional treatments to decide whether they could be incorporated into the government's health services.

During his China swing, Sujudi signed memorandums of understanding with China's minister of health in various fields including human resources development, health administration and traditional medical research.

In Mongolia, Sujudi attended a meeting of the World Health Organization's Southeast Asian health ministers, including those from Bangladesh, Bhutan, North Korea, India, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and Sri Lanka.

He said the meeting touched on health development in the region, the link between health and poverty, health education and psychological health. (pwn)