Denpasar. The health minister on Wednesday said hospitals should provide facilities for traditional healing practices to complement modern medical services. At the Bali International Spa & Wellness Expo, Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih said that despite the country’s wealth of traditional medical knowledge, many Indonesians chose to go overseas to seek traditional treatments.
She cited the results of a study that showed 59.12 percent of Indonesians use jamu, or local herbal medicines, to treat various ailments. Of this percentage, 95.6 percent claimed positive results from consuming jamu.
Endang said it was unfortunate that most hospitals in the country based their services solely on Western medical practices and equipment and did not include traditional practices.
“It does not mean that what comes from the West is bad, but it would be much better if it could be combined with local traditional medical practice,” she said. So far, only 12 hospitals in the country provide a combination of modern and traditional medical practices for their patients, Endang said.
“We hope that in the coming years, this can continue to grow,” she added. To help the process, she said, ways of incorporating herbal medicines into hospital services and private practice are now under discussion at the ministry.
“The government is currently preparing the regulations,” she said. “For hospitals, they can already open such practices under the current permits. However, those wishing to open individual practices should wait to apply for a permit.”Endang said her ministry was also planning to incorporate traditional healing practices into the services of 60 community health centers (puskesmas) across Java this year.
The development of traditional medical services could even become a tourist attraction for the country, she said, adding that a number of countries had already begun to use traditional medicine to lure visitors.
Felix Rusli, an organizer of the Spa & Wellness Expo, which is being held in Sanur, said Bali had about 2,000 spas of various sizes and that even the smaller ones were able to post monthly profits of about Rp 200 million to 300 million ($23,000 to $34,000).
Sanglah General Hospital in Denpasar, the provincial capital, is planning to provide its own herbal spa services, he said. Sanglah’s director for medical and nursing affairs, Anak Agung Jaya Negara, said traditional medical services at the hospital were provided as a complement to modern practices and were only provided to patients on request.
He said the hospital’s traditional medical services included a hyperbaric clinic, herbal medicine and acupuncture. The additional spa service is scheduled to open toward the end of the year.