Young doctors cry foul over abuses

Young doctors cry foul over abuses

Leo Wahyudi S, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Temporarily employed doctors are winning more support for
their plight, with the National Commission on Human Rights
charging that the mandatory service required of new medical
graduates by the government is a form of rights abuse.

Members of the Commission believe that these physicians are
being treated discriminatively and that the terms of their
contracts are also unacceptable.

The commission called on the Ministry of Health to review the
present regulations governing the three-year mandatory service
period.

Temporarily employed doctors, grouped in the Indonesian
Doctors Forum (FDI), have stepped up their protests in recent
weeks, questioning not only the basis of their mandatory
employment but also the conditions they are being subjected to.

Fresh medical graduates are usually required to serve a
mandatory term of service for the government in some 27,000
community health centers.

However the conditions in which the 10,000 doctors work are
often a source of concern, particularly in remote areas. Among
the many complaints is that their salaries are often paid three
to four months late.

Commission members during a meeting with FDI representatives
here last week questioned why only medical graduates were forced
to provide mandatory service despite Law No. 18/1964, which
states that all university graduates must provide mandatory
service.

The Commission in a letter to the minister of health said the
law and the other relevant regulations were discriminatory as
they were only applied to doctors.

But during a meeting with the FDI on April 1, Minister of
Health Achmad Sujudi said he had no authority to make changes to
the law and that the FDI's demands should be directed at the
legislature.

But even among senior members of the medical community, there
is still debate over the issue.

Ali Sulaiman, dean of the University of Indonesia's medical
school, insisted that it was a necessary experience that young
doctors had to go through to hone their skills and recognize real
health problems in society.

"They must not be prima donnas. They are on the front line of
the public health service," Ali argued.

If the program is terminated, Ali said "who would deal with
the public's health needs" as there was a dire need for doctors
in a country where it was estimated that there was only one
physician for every 4,000 people.