- 著者
- 奧島 美夏
- 出版者
- 一般財団法人 アジア政経学会
- 雑誌
- アジア研究 (ISSN:00449237)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.60, no.2, pp.44-68, 2015-01-10 (Released:2015-01-27)
- 参考文献数
- 87
This study aims to describe recent trends in the nurse migration policy of Indonesia. Lagging far behind the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia, Indonesia started to send nurses to the Middle East in 1989 only in a small number, mainly because Indonesian nurses had less professional skills and proficiency in English than those from the abovementioned countries. However, Indonesia found its niche in the international health workforce market—low skilled domestic workers such as maids and babysitters, who also work as caregivers for the elderly and the handicapped. Faced with bad working conditions and frequent ill-treatment at their workplace, however, the outflow of domestic workers from Indonesia is decreasing recently, and the country is now encouraging the out-migration of nurses and qualified caregivers who work in hospitals and care centers.For nurses and caregivers to adapt to the work in foreign countries, they need not only to master local language but also understand the local disease structure, learn related law and local work ethics of nursing and caregiving. In a developing country like Indonesia, medical workers often deal with infectious disease and maternal and child health problems. But what is more important in developed countries, where Indonesian nurses and caregivers will be sent, are nursing and caregiving for the elderly and the handicapped. From 2008, Japan started to accept candidates for nurses and caregivers from Indonesia and some other ASEAN countries on the basis of the economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between Japan and these countries. However, these candidates are facing difficulty in adapting to the work environment in Japan and in passing the examination, which is conducted in Japanese and required to work as qualified nurses and caregivers in Japan. It is argued that the benefit of accepting Indonesian nurses and caregivers to Japan is not enough to compensate for the cost of reeducating them.In this study, Indonesia’s current health policy will be examined and its problems will be revealed. The country’s current nurse migration policy, which is changing under the national goal of human resource development and the increase of out-migration after the Asian economic crisis, will be reported. Finally, the prospects for further changes in the nurse migration policy and challenges it faces will be discussed.