9 - Medicine in Independent Indonesia: National Physicians and International Health

Summary

After the transfer of sovereignty on 27 December 1949, Indonesia’s independence was officially recognised. At that time, only a few health care institutions were still functioning, and the number of physicians and health care workers was a fraction of what was needed. Addressing the nation’s health problems required rebuilding and expanding health care facilities, educating large numbers of physicians and paramedical personnel, implementing public health measures, and organising extensive health education campaigns. Indonesian physicians had previously been nationalist physicians; they were now national physicians, medical doctors working in the state’s health institutions. They shaped Indonesia’s health care institutions, programs of medical education, and medical policy. Because of changed political conditions, Indonesia’s medical elite became resolutely apolitical. Indonesia’s national physicians found that their social position improved after independence but their political engagement disappeared.