President Jokowi Calls to Prevent Diseases, Promote Healthy Lifestyle

By Office of Assistant to Deputy Cabinet Secretary for State Documents & Translation     Date 17 Oktober 2018
Category: News
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President Jokowi hit the gong to open the 14th National Congress of Indonesian Hospital Union, at JCC, Jakarta, Wednesday (17/10) (Photo: Deny S/PR)

President Jokowi hit the gong to open the 14th National Congress of Indonesian Hospital Union, at JCC, Jakarta, Wednesday (17/10) (Photo: Deny S/PR)

To prevent diseases is as important as to cure them, President Joko  “Jokowi” Widodo has said.

In addition, what is equally important, he added, is to promote a healthy lifestyle to improve the quality of human resources in an effort to build the nation.

The President added that the public generally assumes that improved economic welfare means a better quality of health. In fact, he added, the assumption is not completely wrong, but is not completely true either.

“The fact is often the opposite to that. Higher economic growth and technology development often result in a more unhealthy lifestyle, and in the end reduce health quality,” the President said in his remarks at the opening of the 14th National Congress of the Indonesian Hospital Union (PERSI) at the Plenary Hall, Jakarta Convention Center (JCC), Jakarta, Wednesday (10/17).

Data from The Health Care and Social Security Agency’s (BPJS Kesehatan) shows that that costs to treat patients with catastrophic diseases or deadly diseases are actually very high. In 2017, for example, insurance claim for heart disease stood at Rp 9.25 trillion, while insurance claim for cancer treatment was Rp 3 trillion. In the meantime, insurance claim for kidney disease and stroke treatment amounted to Rp 2.2 trillion and Rp 2.2 trillion respectively.

“That is a large amount of money and we need to look into this,” the President said.

President Jokowi also underlined a big amount of insurance claim received by the BPJS for non-catastrophic diseases. In 2017, for instance, insurance claim for cataract surgery was Rp2.6 trillion, while for insurance claims physiotherapy reached Rp965 billion.

On that occasion, President Jokowi also called on hospitals across Indonesia to facilitate the public in accessing health services in more effective, efficient, and comprehensive ways. (MAY/DNS/ES) (STU/EP/Naster)

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