Medicine, health, and development in Indonesia

On August 17, 1945, two days after Japan capitulated, Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta, Indonesia’s first president and vice-president, declared Indonesia’s inde- pendence. At that time, several physicians had been discussing plans for the or- ganization of medical education, healthcare, and public health in the newly in- dependent nation, which were suffused with ideas about development, modernization, and the role of science and medicine in achieving both. Similar ideals had already been formulated by Indonesian intellectuals before the turn of the twentieth century; they soon became central in the philosophy of the In- donesian nationalist movement. Because the Netherlands refused to recognize Indonesia’s independence and sent military troops to recover its former colonies, the realization of these plans had to wait for four and a half years. After the transfer of sovereignty from the Netherlands to the Republic of Indonesia on 27 December 1949, physicians faced the daunting task of establishing medical education, and rebuilding and expanding healthcare institutions, guided by the conviction that the population’s health was essential for the nation’s devel-opment.