TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin stated that Indonesia ideally needs an additional 70,000 specialist doctors within the next decade. However, with the current annual production capacity of only 2,700 specialist doctors, it would take an estimated 26 years to meet this demand.
"If we continue at the current speed, even when we reach 100 years of independence [in 2045], we will still have a shortage of specialist doctors," Budi Gunadi said during a presentation at the Acceleration Program for Improving Access and Quality of Medical Education, held at the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology building in South Jakarta on Tuesday, July 22, 2025.
He called this shortage a serious problem with a direct impact, contributing to over 1 million deaths every year in Indonesia. "How will we be accountable for it in the afterlife?" he added, emphasizing the moral burden of lives lost due to limited specialist healthcare services.
Budi explained that this crisis involves not only the number of specialists but also their uneven distribution and the high cost of education. As an example, he noted the imbalanced distribution of cardiologists: "Many provinces are still in the red or yellow regarding the fulfillment of their specialist cardiologists."
He attributed this distribution difficulty primarily to an insufficient national supply of specialists, rather than solely geographic factors or incentives.
The third issue Budi highlighted is cost. The Health Ministry's calculations show that specialist doctor education can cost around Rp1 billion per person, especially if covered through the LPDP scholarship scheme. To achieve the target of an additional 70,000 specialist doctors, a budget of approximately Rp70 trillion would be required.
"That's a large sum of money to produce doctors who can fulfill our target," Budi remarked.
To address this crisis, Budi confirmed that the Health Ministry has proposed various acceleration measures to President Prabowo Subianto. "We need to act faster so that Indonesia doesn't continue to face shortages even after 100 years of independence," he concluded.
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