A Good Health
“To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise, we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” — Buddha
One can be considered as good in health if he is either physically or mentally good, in other words not being sick or showing any irregularity. Good health is the most important aspect of our life as it is needed to carry out our daily activities smoothly. A simple cough disturbs one’s productivity at work, a fever causes one to stay at home for a short time to get recovered, a broken leg makes one inactive for a long time, cancer causes one to lose hope, and mental illness cause one to be isolated from society. Hence, it is of our concern to maintain a healthy condition to live life to its fullest.
In Indonesia, people’s health condition is improving yearly. According to data on healthdata.org confirms life expectancy has gradually increased annually in which male and female populations have respectively 73.9 years and 69.2 in 2017 compared to 65.4 years and 62.4 years in 1990. The mortality of children under-5 also has improved with 70% of the reported death in 1990. The government, of course, has put up its effort in improving the health condition from its previous state. The BPJS, a governmental health insurance program that had been operating since 2014. It helps Indonesian people in lifting the economic burden when it comes to financing health. Other than that, Indonesian government released an article introducing various kinds of standards and working procedure, cooperating with international health organization such as WHO (World Health Organisation), increasing medical treatment and personal quality, and providing health facility such as puskesmas which was reported 750 newly constructed puskesmas in 2017.
However, according to other data on healthdata.org when we try to compare to Indonesia’s neighbor, considerably Malaysia, its health condition or quality is much better than in Indonesia. Malaysia has 4 years more life expectancy and far less toddler death rate than Indonesia. The same thing also applies to the overall spending of each individual which includes support from the government. An Indonesian spent a total of $116 while a Malaysian spent $407. However, when we see the difference in either the population or the economy between the two mentioned countries, the former has 264 million inhabitants with $3932 GDP per capita compared to the latter which has 32.6 million inhabitants with $12109 per capita which made no wonder for Indonesian to spend such amount of money, these data were based on reports by worldometers.info, countryeconomy.com, and tradingeconomics.com
Yet, the obstacles and problems do not end there, the quality of the Indonesia people should be put into consideration. Education quality and health awareness of most Indonesian are still categorized as low, especially for villagers from a rural area which has limited access to education or the information from outside. Added up by the environment where they live in which medical facility and health necessity are still hard to be fulfilled, as well as sanitation thought that has never been put in mind, this situation made up the characters and the habit of the people. Once an epidemic happens, the villager won’t know how to act and end up dying to wait for support from the government. An instance, a villager in Indonesia hardly can get clean water unlike people in the city, their only water source is from the river, every single time they need water from taking bath to even drinking, the river is the only place where they can get it. But they never put into consideration what happens upstream, whether there is any disposal either from industries or the wastewater which has been used from another villager. There won’t be a problem if the disposed waste is not hazardous, the only thing is that their skin and body start to adapt to it. The problem is when there are some chemical substances or any substances contain deadly diseases disposed into that river. An epidemic will happen in that village, the only thing that they could do is wait for support from the government which takes days because of not knowing how to handle such a situation.
Even in some cities or developed places and even educated people are still careless about sanitation and health, this could be seen from their daily habits such as too much eating fast food, not doing any exercise, littering, overworking, and smoking.
It is reported from The Daily Star website that Indonesia has become the number one country in Asia with the most populations having smoking addiction. Tobaccoatlas reported that in 2015, 66.6% of Indonesian males and 2.1% of females used tobacco daily making 21.37% of death caused by tobacco on males and 7.02% of death of females. Even worse, tobacco has been introduced and its usage is being practiced since a young age, the reason varies, some just want to try it, some don’t want to be left behind by ‘smoker’ friend, some find it is cool, and some felt that smoking their cure. Slowly, they started to enjoy it and using it every day. Hence it becomes the primary necessity for them and keeps on consuming it until their adulthood. There is a case in which smokers prioritize cigarette over food, they can survive the day as long as they can have a cigarette with a cup of coffee. And so, unhealthy habit is maintained, accumulating symptoms of a disease, eventually leading to the destruction of body and death.
In conclusion, health is indeed being improved from the time being for some sector and the government has been doing their best in it. However, the public (most of the people) still seemed to not taking any notice towards health either because of carelessness, uneducated, or bad habit.
