REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - The House of Representatives (DPR) was determined to pass the bill on nursing into law later this year, a lawmaker said. The bill aims to guarantee the future of nursing carrier.
"We, at the House of Representatives Commission IX, have set ourselves the target of completing deliberations on the bill on nursing later this year. We expect public supports and any suggestions," member of the House Commission IX Herlini Amran said last week.
Herlini, who is also a member of the DPR`s working committee for the bill on nursing said the bill had been incorporated to the 2012 national legislation program (Prolegnas) as one of priority bills that must be endorsed into law this year. The bill was completed in 1989 but it was submitted to the House only in 2004, she said. The process in the House then is stuck until today.
Data from the Health Ministry show the country, with a population of about 240 million, now has an estimated 624 thousand nurses and 70 doctors. The large number of nurses served as potential to distribute medical workers to all parts of the country the more so because nurses represented 60 percent of the overall medical workers in the country, she said.
"Based on the results of the 2010 census, 262.6 out of every 100 thousand Indonesian citizens are nurses," she said. The high number provides a great potential to help improving health care quality by distributing nursing human resources to all over Indonesia.