Leo Wahyudi S, Jakarta – Temporarily employed doctors are winning more support for their plight, with the National Commission on Human Rights charging that the mandatory service required of new medical graduates by the government is a form of rights abuse.

Members of the Commission believe that these physicians are being treated discriminatively and that the terms of their contracts are also unacceptable. The commission called on the Ministry of Health to review the present regulations governing the three-year mandatory service period.

Temporarily employed doctors, grouped in the Indonesian Doctors Forum (FDI), have stepped up their protests in recent weeks, questioning not only the basis of their mandatory employment but also the conditions they are being subjected to.

Fresh medical graduates are usually required to serve a mandatory term of service for the government in some 27,000 community health centers. However the conditions in which the 10,000 doctors work are often a source of concern, particularly in remote areas. Among the many complaints is that their salaries are often paid three to four months late.

Commission members during a meeting with FDI representatives here last week questioned why only medical graduates were forced to provide mandatory service despite Law No. 18/1964, which states that all university graduates must provide mandatory service. The Commission in a letter to the minister of health said the law and the other relevant regulations were discriminatory as they were only applied to doctors.

But during a meeting with the FDI on April 1, Minister of Health Achmad Sujudi said he had no authority to make changes to the law and that the FDI's demands should be directed at the legislature.

But even among senior members of the medical community, there is still debate over the issue. Ali Sulaiman, dean of the University of Indonesia's medical school, insisted that it was a necessary experience that young doctors had to go through to hone their skills and recognize real health problems in society.

"They must not be prima donnas. They are on the front line of the public health service," Ali argued. If the program is terminated, Ali said "who would deal with the public's health needs" as there was a dire need for doctors in a country where it was estimated that there was only one physician for every 4,000 people.