Soeharto says health increasingly neglected

Soeharto says health increasingly neglected

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto said yesterday various new
diseases are plaguing the community because lifestyle changes
have led people to neglect their health.

"The success of national development has brought behavioral
changes, some of which are detrimental to health," Soeharto told
health experts attending the opening of the fourth congress of
the Indonesian Heart Foundation yesterday at the State Palace.

"In the past, communicable diseases were the number one
killer. They are gradually being replaced by degenerative
diseases such as heart ailments, stroke and cancer," he said.

He noted that people's wish to work and achieve, often to the
extent of neglecting relaxation time, may lead to such
degenerative diseases.

"Perpetual tension and restlessness may contribute to heart
diseases," he said. "People should realize that treatment for
heart and coronary heart diseases are expensive, and often not
affordable for people in the low income bracket."

Accompanied by Minister of Health Sujudi and Coordinating
Minister for People's Welfare Azwar Anas, Soeharto identified
poor eating habit as another cause for the new diseases.

He said the government will continue efforts to enable local
hospitals to provide the necessary treatment.
"These efforts, however, will be useless if people don't take
preventive measures," he said.

He pointed out that business people could help by introducing
healthy working environments. Privately-run hospitals and
clinics, whose number grows steadily, and the mass media should
also help educate the public about healthy lifestyles.

The foundation's chairperson, L.A. Hanafiah, said the three-
day congress has attracted 200 health experts as well as
representatives of the foundation's branches from across the
country.

Experts on heart disease have been concerned about the
increasingly frequent occurrence of such conditions. Many have
linked this trend with growing "coronary-prone behavior", a
lifestyle centered in consumerism, stiff competition, lack of
exercise and over-consumption of fatty foods, usually identified
with industrialized societies.

One of Indonesia's prominent experts, Dr. Lily Ismudiati
Rilantono, however, contends that coronary heart diseases,
popularly believed to be a "rich man's affliction", are a major
health problem for the poor as well.

She argued in 1994 that the poor are more prone to heart
problems than the rich. Certain prenatal and post-natal
conditions, related to the poor diet of pregnant women, increase
risks of heart diseases and strokes.

Some studies, including several conducted in England, include
people from lower social-economic groups and low birth-weight
infants in the high-risk category. Calls have been made for the
medical profession to study the correlation between the risk of
heart disease and retarded fetal growth and placenta condition.

The Ministry of Health's 1992 Household Health Survey shows
that cardiovascular diseases are now nation's number one killers
and cause 15 percent of deaths nationwide.

A similar survey in 1986 ranked the disease third, below
diarrhea and acute lower respiratory tract infections with a
figure of slightly below 10 percent. In 1972 it was the eleventh
most common cause of death in Indonesia.

Rilantono said the speed with which the prevalence of the
disease increases is excessively high for a country which has not
achieved a stage of development similar to industrialized
countries. (swe)