The Role of Civil Society for World Health – The definition of health of the World Health Organization (WHO) states that “healthy” is not only the absence of illness, but also the conditions when humans are in a prosperous physical, mental, and social condition. But health remains not the first and foremost priority in development.
Specifically in the health sector, it must be recognized that before a pandemic occurs, health is not something that feels like a lot of people. Health policy making and all of its subsequent actions, both global and national, often become something that does not appear to be directly connected to the activities of individuals and communities. On many occasions, health and the health system are seen as merely a stopover to request services and medicines when needed, not something that is consciously maintained as the greatest asset of a country’s population. Whereas the resolution of public health emergencies requires harmonious balance and dynamics among all elements in the social construction of the community. This is what is understood as the holistic approach of government and the holistic approach of society.
The Role of Civil Society for World Health
Who is included in this social construction called government and society? There are at least four major parts of development actors. First, every individual must make efforts to protect themselves and their surroundings through means such as washing hands, not touching the face, doing independent isolation when sick, maintaining physical distance, and limiting physical movement.
Second, the community ensures that public services and especially additional resources can be received by all on the principle of equality, according to local contexts and needs. It is this community that ensures protection for vulnerable groups and health workers and the application of movement restrictions and distance guarding.
Third, the government becomes a compass by coordinating between its institutions and placing itself above the pull of various political and group interests so that a series of public health measures can be undertaken.
Fourth, civil society groups consist of the business world, academics, media, and youth organizations. It is they who embrace individuals and communities to move in harmony and fill gaps in their policies and implementation.
Specifically, how does civil society play a role? What indicators are the benchmarks for success? First, there is a holistic national strategy with the right steps and involves all parties. The strength of the national strategy can be seen from the implementation of several key things, namely community involvement and mobilization to limit virus transfer, mass testing, contact tracing, case isolation to control transmission, clinical services, and health services to reduce mortality. If necessary, the community adapts the strategy according to the risk, capacity, and other factors that risk the resilience of the strategy.
Second, the ability to move together without the need for formal leaders, self-organizing, visionary, and keen to map gaps in national strategies to be filled by action and courage in favor of the public interest. This trait is a distinctive sign that makes civil society have a competitive advantage compared to government partners who must comply with various bureaucratic governance rules that often slow down motion. Poker Online Manado
Third, the ability to penetrate geographical boundaries without group ego and connect various groups. Agile civil society moves not only in action, but also in networking with various similar organizations at home and abroad. This has supported the success in conducting clear, creative public communication and using all available information distribution channels in a liquid but accurate way.
Specifically for Indonesia, the following conditions and modalities can be considered. First, Presidential Regulation No. 59 of 2017 can be used as a reference in regulating the involvement of civil society. This regulation makes it easy for civil society to regulate themselves and place the strength of their organizations in various public activities.
Second, Indonesia actually has a strong network of civil society in the health and non-health sectors and naturally protects vulnerable groups from an early age. For example, Indonesia is still the country with the second highest burden of tuberculosis (TB) in the world. Civil society’s role is to ensure that people with TB with drug resistance receive constant attention. From outside the health sector, philanthropic groups, women and gender activists, as well as various youth organizations and anti-corruption networks are just a few examples of groups that are currently engaged directly in carrying out various community actions. Washing hands, collecting data on the number and distribution of cases, and mapping the needs of health facilities through crowd sourcing, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests for health workers, and online classes to increase the capacity of health workers are some examples of actions that have been and are ongoing.
In a pandemic, our humanity and courage answer the patriotic call tested. It is not easy to work together on a variety of interests, but that does not mean this is a justification for not doing more. This is one of the concrete forms of solidarity that the Director General of WHO has repeatedly emphasized as the main thing needed to defeat the pandemic. Simultaneous movements of various elements within and between countries have the same goal: saving humanity and human lives, completing pandemics, and ending health emergencies.