Candra Malik & Febriamy Hutapea, Yogyakarta – Aggrieved nurses from around the country are expected to demonstrate outside the House of Representatives in Jakarta and in other city centers next week to demand the immediate ratification of the health care and nursing bills, the University Student Nurses Association said on Tuesday.

Heru Adi Prasetya, spokesman for the Yogyakarta branch of the association, said the House's failure to enact the nursing bill and the health care bill, which had been seven years in the making, threatened the jobs of the nation's 500,000 nurses, in light of the Asean Framework Agreement on Services, which allows, among other things, foreign nurses to practice in Indonesia starting next year.

Kirnantoro, head of the Yogyakarta branch of the National Nurses Association (PRNI), urged the House to pass the bills before the terms of the current House legislators expired in September.

"If the bill is not passed in the near future, Indonesian nurses won't have the legal framework to practice on an equitable footing with foreign nurses from Asean countries," he said.

Heru said the adopted law should include ethical standards, qualification standards, standard operating procedures, legal protection and welfare guarantees for nurses.

"Without all of that, nurses won't be able to work in a comfortable environment due to the issues they would have to face without the support of the state," Heru said.

However, legislator Mariani Baramuli, a member of House Commission IX overseeing health, said the bill had not yet been discussed because it was not categorized as a priority under the current National Legislation Program.

"The draft bill is still with the legislation body, and we have not formed any committee to discuss it," Mariani said.

She said the nursing bill was not a priority because the commission was still focused on settling other more important bills linked to health such as the hospital and drug bills.

"We want to finish those bills first, but I hope that the nursing bill will be made a priority in the new House term," she said.

Kirnantoro said nurses were only covered by a Health Ministry decree on Nurse Registration and Practice, which did not provide concrete operational standards for nurses, particularly those in remote areas working under far from ideal levels of supervision.

"If the bill is not passed immediately and improved medical services and standard operational procedures are not implemented soon, nurses will find it difficult to survive," he said.

Bondan Agus Suryanto, the head of Yogyakarta's health office, said the Asean agreement should act as a spur for local nurses to improve services. "Nurses should follow internal development programs and join various seminars and workshops," he said.

Bondan said the nurses here were sufficiently trained to compete with foreign staff, but acknowledged they needed the legal protection that would be afforded them under the nursing bill, adding that other countries had such laws.