Most doctors have poor English

PURWOKERTO, Central Java: Minister of Health Achmad Suyudi said here on Friday that most of Indonesia's 40,000 doctors have a poor grasp of English.

Suyudi admitted that doctors in the country are sufficient in quantity, but in terms of quality the health services here are still poor.

For this reason Indonesia's medical workers have not been able to compete with their counterparts from other countries, he said.

"The existing system has to be totally restructured so as to help improve the health services, if we want to compete in the international market," he said.

He admitted that, besides the poor health services, Indonesia is currently also troubled by the circulation of many artificial medicines.

"We are still investigating who is behind the scandal. This severely hurts the condition of our health service," he said.

Suyudi believes there is a syndicate involving the participation of medical practitioners or drug dealers in the circulation of fake medicines.

None of the culprits involved in the circulation of fake medicines have been identified yet, he added. --JP