Parliament: Reform of national governance for medical internship programme
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Rieke Diah Pitaloka, a member of the House of Representatives’ Commission XIII, stated that the state must step in to reform the governance of Indonesia’s medical internship programme to prevent any more young doctors from dying due to systemic errors in the programme.
“The tragedy of Dr. Mytha and three other internship doctors must serve as a turning point for national reform of the medical internship governance in Indonesia,” Rieke said in a statement received in Jakarta on Saturday.
According to Rieke, the solution to this incident cannot be limited to just a health ministerial regulation, as the programme’s failures involve inter-ministerial coordination, labour protection, occupational safety and health, state financing, local government governance, national health workforce distribution, and the protection of human rights for young medical personnel.
“The internship programme is directly linked to the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform, National Development Planning Agency, local governments, regional public hospitals, Health BPJS, and Manpower BPJS,” she said.
She stated that the legal policy instrument for this must be at the national policy level, binding across sectors and regions, namely a presidential regulation on the governance of the medical internship programme, rather than merely a ministerial health regulation that is sectoral and internal in nature.
“The internship programme concerns the future of healthcare services for the Indonesian people. If the state fails to protect its young doctors today, it is gambling away the future of citizens’ basic right to health, national health resilience, and even Indonesia’s sovereignty in the health sector,” Rieke said.
Rieke expressed deep condolences over the deaths of Dr. Mytha Aprilia Azmy and three other doctors who perished in the line of duty.
She viewed the matter as a tragedy that should not be seen merely as an individual misfortune, but as an alarm for the state to urgently fix the chaotic governance of Indonesia’s medical internship programme.
“I extend my deepest condolences over the deaths of Dr. Mytha and three other participants in the Internship Programme at RSUD KH Daud Arif in Kuala Tungkal, Jambi. This tragedy must not be viewed merely as an individual misfortune, but as a loud alarm for the state regarding the disarray in the governance of the Medical Internship Programme in Indonesia,” she said.
She also emphasised that internship doctors are not cheap labour without legal and humanitarian protection. With the numerous cases of young doctors dying in the internship programme, Rieke sees this as an issue concerning individual rights to life that the state must save.
“As a member of the House of Representatives’ Commission XIII, which has oversight functions in the field of human rights, I view this issue as concerning the protection of the right to life, the right to safety, the right to health, and the right to humane working conditions for internship participants,” she asserted.