Indonesia’s Parliament passed an Omnibus Healthcare law on July 11th which President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) is expected to sign this week. The Omnibus Health Bill replaces 10 existing healthcare laws, including the 2004 Medical Practice Law, the 2009 Health Law, the 2009 Hospitals Law and the 2014 Health Workers Law. The Bill aims to transform six key pillars of the healthcare sector: primary services referral services, health system resilience in dealing with crises, health funding system, healthcare workers, and health technology.
A major difference between Personal Data Protection (PDP) Law and Ministry of Health (MOH) Regulation No. 24/2022 is that under the Bill, Health data must be managed, processed and/or stored in Indonesia if the technology is available. Offshore transfer for health data and specimens will also require MOH approval. These provisions are stricter than PDP Law, which only requires localization for government data. It is unclear whether the Bill will cancel out all contradictive provisions under PDP Law and MOH Regulation.
The Omnibus Health Bill initially aimed to address the lack of specialized physicians by allowing medical students to train at private hospitals and permitting foreign-credentialed doctors to practice in Indonesia. The Bill will allow abortion for women with medical problems as well as sexual violence and human trafficking victims, to be performed within 14 weeks of pregnancy. The current MOH Law No. 36 of 2009 restricts abortion to only six weeks of pregnancy. Moreover, the Bill will be supplemented with provisions for mental health and anti-bullying.
Observers lauded that under the Bill medical licensure responsibility will be transferred from the medical associations to the government. This will end the monopoly of the Indonesian Medical Association (IDI) – something that causes the shortage of physicians, according to WHO. IDI contends that the exclusion diminishes the interests of healthcare workers, although parliament assured that the Law prioritizes workers and patients. Regarding the eliminated provision that requires 5 percent of annual state budget to be allocated for healthcare, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said that this aims to address mismanagement.
