MSF Focus on Indonesia

MSF continues to assist with Indonesia’s COVID-19 response in two health centres in Labuan and Carita sub-districts in Banten province, West Java. This includes support of waste management, ventilation, training in correct use of personal protective equipment, overall infection prevention and control, and the establishment of standard operating procedures. 

In Jakarta, we are scaling up training sessions with community leaders and health workers responsible for COVID-19 surveillance, contact tracing and reporting in districts and villages.

MSF’s medical coordinator in Indonesia, Dr. Nyi Wynn Soe, facilitates a training on COVID-19 response for the organisation’s staff in Labuan, Banten province. © MSF

MSF has been able to resume adolescent health activities in Banten, now reorganised to adhere to national guidelines on COVID-19 prevention including physical distancing. The main activity is home visits by midwives to adolescents with an at-risk pregnancy or due to soon give birth. MSF is also providing remote mental health support to ongoing patients by phone call or text.

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Our teams are also gearing up to confront potential outbreaks in the hundreds of areas we were already working before the pandemic struck. We are deploying medical staff, sending supplies and applying nearly 50 years of experience fighting epidemics to protect the most vulnerable and save lives.

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Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population, and Southeast Asia's biggest economy. It is an ethnically diverse nation, with over 300 local languages.

Médecins Sans Frontières work from a base in the capital, Jakarta, and a mobile unit provides counselling in the areas needed. Our teams also carry out emergency interventions, such as donating hygiene kits and providing psychological support, in the wake of disasters including flash floods and earthquakes.

Natural Disaster Response

Earthquakes and tsunamis are endemic to Indonesia: liquefaction, a phenomenon where soil loses strength or density and turns to mud, and landslides cause significant damage and loss of life in affected areas. MSF provides medical support and mental healthcare to disaster affected communities.

Teams are equipped with medical, water and sanitation, and logistics specialists and engage with affected areas to assess the situation, and to provide all forms of assistance.

IDPs camp, South Dolo Subdistrict, Sigi District in South Sulawesi

Due to local Puskesmas (community health clinic) buildings suffering damage as a result of the earthquake, people were unable to access health services as usual. MSF colleagues worked together with the local Health Office to carry out care services at internally displaced peoples (IDP) camps, such as this one in South Dolo Subdistrict, Sigi District in South Sulawesi. © Wahyuningsih / MSF

The priority for teams is to provide support to health centres in remote areas to restart their primary healthcare activities and ensure the prevention of epidemics such as diarrhoea, skin diseases and measles. Restarting routine vaccination, data collection, and epidemiological surveillance for different diseases are also performed by MSF teams.

Reproductive Health

MSF runs an ongoing program with a focus on sexual and reproductive health education for school children and teachers, and in conjunction with the Ministry of Health, has been involved in coordinating strategies to increase access to confidential reproductive healthcare services tailored to the specific needs of young people and adolescents.

The project is aimed at raising awareness of healthcare options among youth, as well as improving the quality of services available.

MSF is working with the local health authorities to encourage health-seeking behaviour, particularly among young people in the fishing villages and towns on the Thousand Islands, an archipelago north of Jakarta.