1Anna Kurniati, 2Ferry Efendi, 1Nurul Aidil Adhawiyah
1Center for Planning and Management of Human Resources for Health
Ministry of Health, The Republic of Indonesia
Jl. Hang Jebat Raya F3, Kebayoran Baru Jakarta, 12120
2Faculty of Nursing Airlangga University Indonesia
Jl. Mulyorejo Kampus C Unair Surabaya 60115
In line with the rapid economical growth and technological development, nursing education in Indonesia has also been developed positively over the last decades, starting with the issues of “The doctor’s servant” and “Nurses as the second class”. Nurses want their voices heard together with their profession more highly recognized. As the result, in some urban provinces of the country a Diploma Program in Nursing was set up in the 1970s. In 1982, Indonesia University opened a Bachelor degree in nursing science as a pilot project. Since then, several medical faculties followed the step of Indonesia University and provided Bachelor’s Degree Program in Nursing. Moreover, Self-study Education Program in Nursing started in Indonesia and, this type of education quickly spreads to other cities, which included Diploma Program, Diploma IV at the beginning and Bachelor’s Degree Program after several years.
The majority of nursing schools offer a D3 education (academy) level. This is consistent with the policy decision taken by MoH in the late 1990s to abolish SPK level education for nurses. Lately, the Indonesian Nurses Association (INNA) has been pushing for an even higher qualification for nurses as reflected in the growing number of schools offering a bachelor degree (S1) program in nursing. At the moment, 174 schools or 25.5 percent of all nursing schools offer an S1 education (World Bank, 2008).
Like other cadre, nursing personnel faces a shortage both in hospital and community. It’s a common crisis not only happened in Indonesia but also in overseas.
In the year 2007, the shortage of nurses in hospital has reached 17,354 nurses within country. This shortage believed have an impact on hospital outcome. The presence of Diploma IV specialist partners is expected to meet the need of quality health workers in a short period or 1 year training. Training more of existing categories of health staff may seem an easy path of rapidly increasing or producing skilled nurses.
Diploma IV or D IV specialist partner has been created as a way to accelerate access and quality of medical specialization service. The participants of this program is a nurses who hold Diploma III background. There were five specializations in the year 2008 as follow:
• Health analyst
• Physical therapist
• Reanimation anesthesia nursing
• Medical surgical nursing
• Radio diagnostic
A quite higher number of applicants can be a signed as positive response of this program. The number of applicants are increasing every year following the increased number of scholarship available.
