4,500 Indonesian Surgeons Ready to Support Disaster Response

RRI.CO.ID, Jakarta – The Central Board of the Indonesian Surgeons Association (PABI) has expressed its readiness to assist the government in treating disaster victims across Indonesia.

PABI chairman Dr. Heri Setyanto said in Bantul on Sunday that surgeons have been trained in trauma care and patient management to support disaster response efforts.

"We have a new additional qualification, Emergency Surgery and Traumatology Specialist. Whenever a disaster occurs, our members are certainly there," he said, as quoted by Antara.

Heri said PABI has collaborated with the Muhammadiyah Disaster Management Center (MDMC), the National Crisis Center and National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) in handling disaster victims.

"We surgeons have been trained to handle patients requiring life-saving interventions," he said.

According to him, surgeons have the expertise to treat disaster victims suffering from trauma, including those requiring life-saving procedures. "Surgeons remain the leaders in handling traumatic and multiple trauma cases," he said.

Heri said PABI has around 4,500 surgeons nationwide, spread across various regions of Indonesia.

He added that the number is supported by human resources from 25 surgical education institutions across the country. "There used to be only 19. Now, with the addition of hospital-based programs and new surgical education institutions, there are 25," he said.

However, Heri acknowledged that the distribution of surgeons in Indonesia remains uneven, particularly in underdeveloped, frontier and outermost (3T) regions.

"The Health Ministry has addressed this through cooperation with the College of Surgeons and PABI. However, there are still several areas where surgeons cannot settle permanently," he said.

He emphasized that a more even distribution of surgeons remains necessary so that people throughout Indonesia can access surgical services, including during disasters. ***