Medicine, health, and development in Indonesia

Abstract

On August 17,1 945, two days after Japan capitulated, Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta, Indonesia'sf irst president and vice-president,d eclared Indonesia'si ndependence.At thattime, several physicians had been discussing plans for the organization of medicale ducation, healthcare,a nd public health in the newlyi ndependent nation, which weres uffused with ideas about development, modernization, and the role of science and medicinei na chieving both.Similar ideals had alreadyb een formulated by Indonesiani ntellectuals before the turn of the twentieth century;t hey soon became central in the philosophyo ft he Indonesiann ationalist movement.B ecause the Netherlandsr efused to recognize Indonesia'sindependence and sent military troops to recover its former colonies, the realization of these plans had to wait for four and ah alf years.After the transfer of sovereignty from the Netherlands to the Republic of Indonesia on 27 December 1949,p hysicians faced the daunting task of establishing medical education, and rebuilding and expanding healthcarei nstitutions, guidedb y the conviction that the population'sh ealth was essential for the nation'sd evelopment.¹In this article, we analyze how Indonesianconceptions of development were related to ideas about health duringfour periods, following conventional demarcationsi nI ndonesianh istoriography.We relatet hese conceptions to fundamental demographic changes, changingc hallenges and health outcomes, and changes in the provision of healthcare.We commencewith the notions of development articulated by Indonesian physicians and other intellectuals duringcolonial times, from the 1880s to the end of the Japanese occupation (1942)(1943)(1944)(1945) and the war of independence (1945)(1946)(1947)(1948)(1949).Before 1949,I ndonesian physicians debated the various interrelationships between medicine, health, and develop-Note: The authorsw ould liket ot hankP rofessor Sangkot Marzuki forh is helpful comments on an earlier draft of thisa rticle. Ourd iscussiono fn otions of developmenti si nspiredb yA riel Heryanto'ss eminal essay Languageo fD evelopment andD evelopment of Language: The Case of Indonesia (Canberra:

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