November 14, 2024
JAKARTA – We join the chorus of praise for the government’s plan to provide free annual health screenings for all citizens with an eye to reducing the country’s disease burden.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin recently announced that starting next year, all Indonesians would be eligible for a free health check on their birthday at a local Puskesmas (community health center).
The new program complements the existing free screenings for the 14 most common deadly diseases, which the ministry launched last year.
We might have hoped that the government could have come up with this idea sooner, but it’s always better late than never.
The planned program aims to provide different types of health screenings according to an individual’s age and gender.
For example, screenings for young children below 5 years will check for preexisting conditions and birth defects that can disrupt growth, brain development and metabolism, such as congenital hypothyroidism.
Meanwhile, children and adolescents up to 18 years will be checked for obesity, diabetes and oral health, and screenings for adults include testing for common cancers, specifically cervical and breast cancer for women and prostate cancer for men.
Senior citizens will be screened for a variety of conditions and disorders related to advanced age, including Alzheimer’s disease and osteoporosis.
All in all, it’s a good preventive healthcare program to protect Indonesians.
However, we beg to differ from the minister’s description of the health screenings as “a birthday gift from the state” to the people, which seems to imply that the program is an act of altruism from a most kind and benevolent state.
Rather, the right to health is a fundamental part of human rights that is indispensible for leading a life of dignity.
The right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health was first articulated in the 1946 Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO). The document’s preamble defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.
Our Constitution also upholds citizens’ right to health. Article 28H, paragraph 3 of the amended Constitution states that everyone has the right to social security, so as to enable each individual citizen to develop fully as a human being and live in dignity.
The new health screening program is timely, given that a large share of the population suffers from a variety of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). This includes 30 percent with hypertension and 10 percent with diabetes, according to the 2023 Indonesian Health Survey, while a 2020 survey by Statistics Indonesia (BPS) showed that NCDs were responsible for 87 percent of all deaths nationwide.
In addition, the number of NCD-related claims among National Health Insurance (JKN) policyholders is rising annually. If this trend continues at its current rate, it is projected that JKN would be unable to cover the combined health costs of all 271 million policyholders in just two years.
Almost a decade ago, the World Economic Forum estimated that the country would suffer financial losses of up to US$4.47 trillion due to NCDs in 2012-2030, or 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) for that period.
On the flip side, the country could cut its economic burden by up to $1.6 trillion if it simply lowers the mortality rate of several NCDs, according to the Health Ministry.
Overall public awareness of good health and hygiene has improved, and this has led to an increasing number of food and beverage companies churning out products containing less sugar. We have also seen a stronger policy stance as well as more robust actions against smoking.
Add to that this new, free annual screening program, which can reinforce ongoing preventive measures, and it seems we are on the same page that prevention is better than cure.