By Mohd Iswandi Kasan Anuar
JAKARTA, March 7 (NNN-Bernama) — Indonesians spent 165 trillion rupiah (US$10.7 billion) per year for medical treatment abroad, especially in Malaysia, President Joko Widodo said.
The president, who is popularly known as Jokowi, said almost one million Indonesian patients went to Malaysia for treatment with another 750,000 to Singapore and other countries like Japan, the US and Germany.
“Should we let it go on like this?” he asked while addressing the inauguration ceremony of a new private hospital in Bandung, West Java.
Hence, the government will fully support the construction of more hospitals with international standards to prevent the country from losing a large amount of foreign exchange, he stressed.
The Cabinet Secretariat’s office, in a statement noted, Jokowi urged the health and education ministries to solve the shortage of specialist doctors in order to improve the health services.
Adequate medical equipment and good physical facilities were also key to providing better services, he added.
— NNN-BERNAMA