Heaptalk, Jakarta — Indonesia’s Health Minister, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, and Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, officially unveiled SpaceX’s satellite, Starlink, internet service for the health sector in the archipelago. The inauguration was marked by trial at the Sumerta Kelod Community Health Center, Denpasar, Bali. (05/19)
Apart from the early trial phase at the Sumerta Kelod Community Health Center, Denpasar, Bali, the Ministry of Health’s collaboration with Starlink will prioritize internet installation at these facilities in other areas. Further, the Ministry will hold the second phase of Starlink’s trial at the Bungbungan Klungkung Sub-Public Health Center in the Aru Islands.
This trial aims to determine the recording of immunization data, screening for non-communicable diseases (PTM), or digital weighing of toddlers by health workers through the Sehat IndonesiaKu (ASIK) Application and will be displayed in real-time via the application’s dashboard. This infrastructure is expected to provide telemedicine services, teleconsultations, and online patient monitoring and simplify for people to access specialist services even though they live in remote and outermost areas.
In response to this matter, Minister Budi Budi said cooperation is critical to supporting the progress of health services, specifically in community health centers in remote places with unreachable internet networks.
“We have digitized around 10,000 community health centers. Nevertheless, we still discovered that around 2,700 community health centers still have limited internet access, and around 700 do not. By providing the Starlink internet provider, around 3,400 community Health centers are expected to gain internet services.” affirmed Minister Budi.
Instead of spending its cost to utilize Elon Musk’s internet provider, the Ministry of Health claimed that the costs for subscribing to and procuring Starlink infrastructure came from the Health Operational Assistance (BOK) under the Special Allocation Fund (DAK), which the central government transfers to regional governments annually.
“I am very excited to bring connectivity to places with low connectivity. The internet is like a lifesaver because we can learn many things. We are focusing this event on Starlink and the benefits that connectivity brings to remote islands. I think it emphasizes the importance of internet connectivity, how much of that can be a lifesaver,” Elon affirmed as cited in the Strait Times.
