Wednesday, 30 November 2022, the Universitas Indonesia again inaugurated 2 (two) Professors from the Faculty of Public Health (FPH). The two professors are Prof. drs. apt. Bambang Wispriyono, Ph.D., from the Department of Environmental Health and Prof. Dr. dr. Wachyu Sulistiadi, M.A.R.S., from the Department of Health Administration and Policy (AKK). Held at the UI Convention Center, the professor’s inauguration ceremony was also broadcast live via Youtube UI TV.
At this inauguration ceremony, Prof. drs. apt. Bambang Wispriyono, Ph.D., delivered an inaugural speech entitled “Focus, Direction, Needs, Challenges, and Actions (FACTS) on Environmental Health in Facing Environmental Change and Global Health”. “A healthy environment is an integral part of economic development and human development by ensuring human productivity runs so that it is not affected by diseases originating from the environment, so the existence of environmental health aspects in (government) policies is a must,” said Prof. Bambang through his speech. On the other hand, Prof. Bambang also emphasized that globalization and various global health challenges demand the development of environmental health sciences. One of them is realizing a new environmental health paradigm according to global conditions as evidenced by current environmental health issues.
In facing global environmental health challenges, Prof. Bambang Wispriyono conveyed the idea of FACT (Focus, Direction, Needs, Challenges, Action) regarding environmental health. The first point in his presentation is Focus. Given the breadth of environmental health, Prof. Bambang invited all parties to focus more on important aspects of environmental health. It was stated that environmental health must also be in accordance with the direction of the global paradigm. In the process, environmental health has needs, namely the assessment of environmental health aspects and the competence of qualified environmental health workers. In addition to this, environmental health is also faced with challenges, namely involving key actors to internalize the new paradigm, with an emphasis on strengthening cooperative relations between environmental health professional associations and associations of environmental health educational institutions. Action is needed, namely strategic steps in the form of strengthening and updating regulations and policies, strengthening resource management, and strengthening data digitalization governance.
While Prof. Dr. dr. Wachyu Sulistiadi, M.A.R.S., delivered an inaugural speech entitled “Health Policy Reform through Strengthening Indonesia’s Health Resilience System.” Awareness of the vulnerability of national health systems and global health systems has never been more attractive to global attention, especially with the presence of COVID-19. The loss of life, global economic disruption, massive social inequality, and the collapse of even the most basic health services show what happens when a crisis hits, and health systems are caught unprepared. Health security systems are currently seen as an important component in every country around the world.
“A public health emergency, especially at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, created a global crisis. Even though this has been resolved, all countries are now reforming their national health systems by providing resilience strengthening for public health transformation,” said Prof. Wachyu.
The health resilience system will strengthen the national health system by strengthening preventive capacity, surveillance detection capacity, response capacity, and recovery capacity by reducing vulnerability and increasing alternative choices of solutions while opening many opportunities so that governance becomes good and information systems are always functioning, can adapt to various risks, the ability of health workers is sufficient, logistics is fulfilled and has a formidable health effort.
Along with the increasingly complex dynamics of the development of health problems, it is necessary to reform health policies as a strategic step in determining better policies. The reform of the national health system should be based on policy reform which includes reform of the systematics of health policy, institutional reform of the ministry of health to become the ministry of public health, and reform of health policy by strengthening health resilience. Indonesia, as a member of the G20 International Cooperation forum, must be proactive in using the momentum to prevent the national health system’s powerlessness from recurring in the face of unexpected shocks by prioritizing the wisdom and independence of the Indonesian nation.
The two Permanent Professors of FPH UI, respectively, become the 55th and 59th Professors confirmed by the Universitas Indonesia in 2022. Through the inauguration of Prof. drs. apt. Bambang Wispriyono, Ph.D., as FPH UI Professor in the Field of Environmental Health and Prof. Dr. dr. Wachyu Sulistiadi, M.A.R.S., as FPH UI Professor in the Field of Administration and Health Policy (AKK), FPH UI now has 35 professors. (wrk)
