Nivell Rayda – Papuan political prisoner Filep Karma suffered for eight months with a bladder infection but in that time the only help he received was to be told by prison officers to l

Jakarta – To achieve improved maternal health, in pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) involves overcoming several hurdles, with the maternal mortality rate still at 2.28

Dessy Sagita – In a claim likely to cause consternation from Muslim smokers, a Dutch author has published a book that claims that pig blood is used to make cigarette filters.

Peter Gelling, Jakarta – Despite the government's best efforts to curb the consumption of alcohol, the party here is as rollicking as ever.

Jakarta – A video posted on the Internet of a little boy smoking, swearing and making lewd sexual gestures has shocked Indonesia, reports said Thursday.

Nethy Dharma Somba, Jayapura – Lidya is 12 years old but unlike most girls her age, she only weighs 9 kilograms, suffers from leprosy and spends most of her time in bed.

The parents of a six-month-old baby who died after she was allegedly denied treatment by Tangerang's Sari Asih Hospital are planning to take legal action.

Farouk Arnaz & Dessy Sagita – An anti-tobacco group on Thursday reported a current lawmaker and two former legislators to the National Police, accusing them of eliminating a clause

Jakarta – Family planning programs are an unfamiliar service among city residents, especially among the poor, with an observer warning of the looming phenomenon of a lost generation.

Oyos Saroso H.N., Bandarlampung – Officials' maneuvers to maintain a good political image ahead of a direct election are believed to have contributed to widespread malnutrition in Banda

Wasti Atmodjo, Denpasar – Around 70 million Indonesian people have no access to sanitation facilities, an official confirmed.

Jakarta – The National Family Planning Coordinating Agency (BKKBN) insists the involvement of the Indonesian Military (TNI) in its national campaigns is not to coerce people into partic

Hunger Alert Update: AHRC-HAU-001-2010

Dear Friends,

Ahmad Pathoni – Siti Maemunah says her son has been delusional for more than seven years, often talking to himself and sometimes becoming angry for no apparent reason.

An East Java hospital has been accused of denying a family the right to take home and bury the body of their deceased newborn baby because the infant's parents could not meet their medi

Nivell Rayda – Strict implementation of the 2004 National Social Security System Law is needed to prevent millions of Indonesians from slipping through the cracks in the health insuranc

Ulma Haryanto – Indonesian Corruption Watch has found that some hospitals still discriminate against poor families who are entitled to free medical treatment, the watchdog group's publi

Nurfika Osman – At least 7.6 million Indonesian children under the age of 5 – or one out of every three – suffer from stunted growth, a primary manifestation of malnutrition in early ch

Surabaya – The East Java provincial government has decided to provide free healthcare to clerics who run Islamic boarding schools across the province, Deputy Governor Saifullah Yusuf sa

Oyos Saroso H.N, Bandarlampung – Health insurance for the poor (Jamkesmasda) provided by the regional administration is being denied to 30 percent of poor families in Lampung because so

Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – Cases where hospitals reject patients living in poverty because they cannot pay the advance was a common occurrence in Indonesia several years ago.

Matt Crookm, Dili – The tiny nation of East Timor could face a deadly AIDS epidemic, with promiscuity among youths, low condom use and general ignorance leading to a sharp increase in r

Dessy Sagita – The avian and swine flu strains may have caused the most panic, but combating tuberculosis, dengue fever and malnutrition should top the Ministry of Health's priorities f

Jakarta – Indonesia needs more dedicated midwives to help reach maternal and infant mortality targets set by the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, a meeting h

Cash-strapped Indonesians are cutting out the middleman and selling their organs online, exploiting a loophole in local laws and fueling a dangerous and illegal trade in human body part

"Who's next?" "You, who's the sick one? How much?"

Nurfika Osman – Poor sanitation habits have led to the large-scale contamination of the country's water supplies, which in turn has led to massive financial losses for the nation.

Wasti Atmodjo, Denpasar – Thousands of people gathered at Puputan Margana Square Tuesday to commemorate World AIDS Day, which falls every Dec. 1.

The head of the health department in Solo on Monday said curbing the rate of HIV/AIDS had become more difficult after the closure of the city's main red-light district in 2002 because k

Luh De Suriyani, Bali – A number of patients suffering from HIV/AIDS have called for fair health treatment saying they have no access to the government-tailored national public health i

Jakarta – The latest number of HIV/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) cases in Indonesia has reached 298,000, Indonesian Public Welfare Minister Agung Laksono said here on Monda

David Coady – An international charity focussed on safe water and sanitation says children are dying needlessly in East Timor due to poor toilet facilities.

Jakarta – The removal of a Health Law clause on tobacco may have occurred within the House of Representative's internal process, the House speaker said on Friday.

Jakarta – Thirty percent of Indonesia's children are underweight and have a lower-than-average height for their age, mostly because of early childhood malnutrition, an expert says.

Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Febriamy Hutapea – Despite calls from some former lawmakers to stop the debate over the controversial deletion of a section identifying tobacco as an addi

Pandaya, Jakarta – Outgoing legislators may well be remembered for their crude sense of humor, but their last legacy, losing a contentious provision on tobacco from the health bill they

Luthfiana Mahmudah, Jember – Every month at the Jember administration-owned RSUD Dr.

A recent survey conducted on two islands in the Thousand Islands regency painted a bleak picture of poverty and neglect.

Ulma Haryanto – Although the state health insurance system has been widely criticized for its shortcomings, millions of poor people across the country still depend on it for much-needed

Dessy Sagita & Ulma Haryanto – About 16 million people are likely to lose their state health insurance, known as Jamkesmas, due to a reported decline in the number of people living

Ismira Lutfia & Putri Prameshwari – About Rp 185 trillion ($19.6 billion) is spent each year treating smoking-related diseases, a consumer advocacy group said on Sunday as it renewe

Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – The House of Representatives passed the hospital bill into law yesterday, granting the government authority to oversee private hospitals and abolish their licen

Jakarta – Women's rights activists protested against the new health law Wednesday, which they say does not accommodate the rights of unmarried people to reproductive health services suc

The Asian Human Rights Commission on Wednesday said it had received information that the death toll from famine continues to rise in Yahukimo, Papua, even as some government officials d

Hunger Alert Case: AHRC-HAC-006-2009

Dear friends,

Dessy Sagita – The recent "detention" of two women and their babies by a South Jakarta hospital is further proof that many people, particularly low-income earners, don't receive the hea

Camelia Pasandaran – A team from the State Ministry for People's Welfare is slated to visit Yahukimo, Papua, to find out what is happening in the district, where at least 92 people have

Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – Critics have urged the House of Representatives to delay the endorsement of the health bill, now dragging on for nine years, saying it was an effort to shift th

Dessy Sagita – Indonesia Corruption Watch has demanded the House of Representatives delay passing the controversial health bill, claiming the legislation remains flawed and had failed t

Jakarta – Stigmatization and discrimination are two crucial problems for people living with HIV/AIDS who seek medical treatment and to deal with these social attitude problems requires