Health minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih. (ANTARA)
"The bill will have clauses aimed at motivating doctors, specialists and other health workers to work in remote areas," she said here on Saturday.
The clauses, she said, among others contain provisions on special facilities for health workers to pursue further study and to become civil servants.
"They are also about pay for those working in remote and isolated areas. Their implementation will be done jointly by the central and regional governments," she said.
She said so far supply and distribution of health workers were carried out based upon a minister`s regulation on health worker employment.
"It is still a proposal from regions. So the new law would overcome the problem," she said.
The plan to issue a new law is part of a long-term effort to improve the system of supply and distribution of health workers across the country, she said.
In a short term she said the government would carry out an acceleration program by sending additional workers to remote and isolated areas.
"A total of 130 personnel will be sent there in the next few months," she said.
She said the government would also assign senior resident doctors who were at the final stage of their specialist education to fill vacancies in the hospitals in remote regions.
"Local doctors will also be give facilities to pursue specialist education to fill the gap," she said.
Supply and distribution of health workers have so far remained a problem because the number is still short and distribution has not yet been spreading with most working in urban areas, she said.(*)
