David Stanton, Acting Director of Health USAID Indonesia, gave a welcome speech to participants of the second Webinar series of One Health Collaboration Center (OHCC) Cenderawasih University via virtual Zoom Meeting last Thursday (01/09/2022). He said the United States and Indonesia had collaborated for so long for development and overcoming complex global health issues. Hopefully, this One Health webinar can be applied to detect, prevent, and overcome infectious diseases in the Papua area. USAID is happy and proud to continue to collaborate with various universities in Indonesia, especially the Ministry of Education, INDOHUN, and OHCC Uncen. “Alone, unable to do or do little. Together we can achieve so much,” said David Stanton at the end of his speech. Then continued with the opening of the Second Webinar Series by Suryo Boediono, ST. MBA., Representative of Directorate General of Higher Education.
In this second webinar series, OHCC Uncen invited Harold M. Pical, SKM., M.Kes. who is the Head of Class II Port Health Office of Jayapura City, and Helda Wali, S.Kep., M.Kes. as the Health Head Office of Central Mamberamo District Service. In the webinar on Thursday, 1 September 2022, the participants enthusiastically reached 50, including lecturers, students, and the general public.
In the first session, the presentation was given to Harold M. Pical, SKM., M.Kes., which discussed the topic “How to Build Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Partnerships.” At the beginning of his presentation, he explained the process of administering health quarantine at the entrance to the Indonesian state based on Law no. 6 of 2018, where much cross-sectors play a role in tackling emerging infectious diseases such as COVID-19 now with the One Health approach. In partnership practice, Mr. Harold said that the Class II Port Health Office has partnered in coordination and communication with the Jayapura City Health Office, Provincial Health Office, and the Pharmaceutical sector to handle COVID-19 & Polio in Papua. Then the COVID-19 screening specimen results at the port will be sent to the Regional Health Laboratory for analysis. Not only the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, but the Port Health Office handles various infectious diseases such as Vector Borne Diseases (Malaria, DHF, Chikungunya, Yellow fever, Leptospirosis) and Water Borne Diseases (Diarrhoea, Typhoid, Dysentery, Cholera, Hepatitis). Harold also added that routine tasks are carried out with the Agricultural Quarantine and BKIPM, namely handling zoonotic diseases such as Bird Flu, Rabies, Anthrax, Swine Flu, Leptospirosis, Nipah, Food Security, and Food Borne Diseases. At the end of the presentation, he stressed that in efforts to be effective in the practice of the MoU working partnerships, it is necessary to pay attention to five achievement indicator factors, including communication, coordination, collaboration, contribution, and compliance.
After listening to material within the scope of the Provincial government, the second presentation session was continued by the Health Head Office of the Central Mamberamo Regency, Helda Wali, S.Kep., M.Kes. which discussed the topic of Collaborative Practices and Partnerships for Health Workers in the Highlands Region of Papua. “It is known that Central Mamberamo is the only mountainous area in the Lapago region cooperating with NGOs, universities, and the government. This can be accomplished if there is collaboration, communication, and commitment, which are the basic things to work together to find solutions to health problems in the local area,” said Helda Wali, Head of the Mamberamo Tengah District Health Office. Furthermore, the Head of the Health Service said that the various health programs carried out through collaboration are vaccines, stunting, prevention and handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, PHBS, STBM, Malaria, and helminthiasis. As for implementing partners, such as UNICEF, the Noken Foundation, GAPAI, UNCEN, the Papua POLTEKES, BRIN, GAIN, and OHCC Uncen.
Helda also said that there are many benefits from collaboration with partners externally and internally in handling health. For example, this example of a healthy lifestyle program can help the puskesmas team to approach the community and teach them not to open defecation in remote villages. Likewise, academic researchers from BRIN and OHCC Uncen have been involved so that the research results can provide sound advice for advocating health problems to the local government in Central Mamberamo District. In this regard, Helda Wali, as the Head of the Health Service, appreciates the partners who have helped to deal with health problems with a limited team of health workers. Behind the success of partnering, there are also challenges, such as communication in coordination, commitment from the community level to the government, and ongoing partnerships in academia and local and international NGOs. Concluding her presentation, she briefly shared portrait pictures with the Central Mamberamo children after practicing clean hand washing, hoping that she wants the Central Mamberamo generation to need to be guarded during their growth and development through health programs from birth to adulthood to regenerate intelligent children in the future, to build a healthy Papua.
