Presentation Flashcards
According to WHO, Indonesia spends less GDP on health than other things. There is a relatively low count of biomedical engineers in this country. Indonesia is considered a country with a lower-middle income, among others.
In 2011, it was mentioned in the World Health Statistics report (by WHO) that lower-middle income countries spent less percentage of their GDP on health.
As given in the report, the total expenditure on health in Indonesia was 2.3% of their GDP by 2008.
That was far less investment in the health sector compared to other countries such as 15.2% of GDP of USA, 10.5% in Germany, 8.7% in UK, 8.3% in Japan, 4.3% in Malaysia and 4.1% in Thailand.
In Indonesia, the health expenses per capita are among the lowest in comparison to other countries, at $99 PPP.
On the other hand, health expenses per capita in India are $132 PPP, $308 PPP in China, and $3445 PPP in UK (as stated in the 2011’s report by WHO).
Statistically, Indonesia (being a lower-middle income country) has in sufficient medical facilities. For example, it has only 6 hospital beds per population of 10,000.
While on an average other country have 22 hospital beds per 10,000 population.
Indonesia’s statics in terms of facilities are even lower than all low-income countries – even the low income South-east Asian countries have 11-13 hospital beds per 10,000 population.
Also, consider the number of radiotherapy units, among which, in the year 2010, Indonesia has only 0.1 radiotherapy units per 1,000,000 population compared to 0.3 units in all South East Asian countries and 0.6 units in all lower-middle income countries.
Due to lack of proper medical instrumentation, a high rate of medical cases occurs in several disease especially one that are contagious such as Malaria, Tuberculosis, Pneumonia etc.
This is because delayed diagnosis and treatment of patients with infectious diseases causes them to spread among the population.
These examples show that the government needs to improve the health system in order to provide a better service for its people.
A way to solve these biomedical concerns is by improving health technology by inventing or designing medical instruments.
Now-a-days, different medical instruments are utilized in a several health services, from diagnosis until treatment as well as, to facilitate a better method and quality of curing patients.
The role of biomedical engineers is vital in order to maintain as well as improve and innovate the designing of medical instruments. According Law no. 23 (year: 1992) of the Republic of Indonesia regarding health, professionals in the field of biomedical engineering are called ‘medical technicians’ by the government.
There is a high demand for biomedical engineers in hospitals, but they are also required in other fields; For example in the another country (UK), out of a sample set of 310 engineers, (71%) work in hospital trusts, 46 (15%) in universities, 30 (10%) in community health trusts, 8 (3%) in commercial purchasing agencies, 4 (1%) in private hospitals and 3 (1%) in industry.
Whereas in Indonesia, 69% of biomedical engineers in the country had job opportunities in the industry, 30% in hospitals and only 1% employment in Universities.
It is obvious from this information that the Academic field of Biomedical discipline needs to be strengthened in order unlock greater employment opportunities in hospitals, where medical technicians are needed the most.
It can also be deduced from these statistics that biomedical engineering employment in Indonesia consists of fewer highly skilled occupational workers i.e. the labor force consists of operators and technicians (low to medium skilled jobs), whereas in the UK, the labor force consists of medium to highly skilled jobs.
As for industrial jobs, the ministry of health reported in 2010 that in Indonesia there are 204 companies that produce medical devices.
It is important to note that the trades volume of health instruments increased by 49.5% per year from the period 1997 to 2007, imported goods were preferred over medical instruments.
Furthermore, Indonesia contributes only 0.5% from the total world trade volume of medical instruments, (which reaches US$ 800 billion).
This Indicates that the field of healthcare has not developed its potential in this country, and that government intervention is needed to overcome this issue.
Among the areas in which biomedical engineers are required are; 1) hospitals in which the growing clinical needs encourage more hi-tech medical instruments with the availability of Biomedical engineers to be able to operate and maintain the instruments.2)academia, including research and development, to establish a strong foundation of learning in the biomedical engineering field, 3)industry where it is required to increase domestic production of health instruments, including the using of domestic raw materials, hence increasing need for labor.
It is estimated that the total labor input for the biomedical engineering industry reached only 21,020 jobs in 2009 (0.48% from a total labor force in all medium and large-scale industries).
A roadmap for having sufficient medical instruments in the country begins from resources; this includes human capital, budget, natural resources (biomaterials), facilities, regulation, networking and partnership with government and industry.
These resources, when invested in the field of research, could potentially yield a better means of diagnosis and therapy along with quality insurance and health instrument standardization.
Research and development give rise to technological advances such as in nano medicine, AI medical technology, devices that are amperometric, potentiometric, optical in nature, devices that function as needed at a low-cost.
. These biotechnologies and health instruments can be represented as prototype product, targeting markets such as that of diagnostic instruments (ECG, ventilator, CT scan etc.), medical nuclear therapy, Immunization, rehabilitation instruments, emergency and forensic kits etc.
