Medical disasters or disastrous medicine? Dutch medical care in the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia (1870–1949) – three examples

The author argues that medical care in the Dutch East Indies, should be re-evaluated from successful to disastrous. The author first defines a medical disaster as one in which medical care has fallen short due to its own shortcomings- or even intentionally. This contrasts with a disaster for humankind, in which also many are to be regretted, but for which healthcare is not to blame, because of, for instance, a lack of resources, manpower or knowledge. The author then looks at three different types of medical care: Red Cross aid; the public health policy to eradicate leprosy; and the military medical aid given to the Indonesian population (1946-1949). In all these colonial interests were a priority, if not the driving force. Medical humanitarianism came second at best. This produced outcomes that should be called medically disastrous. Partly this is not new: medical historians have identified colonial medicine as a tool of empire before. But what it nevertheless had achieved, defined as the medical 'good', was seldom questioned, cutting off medical acts and their results from their context. The question must be asked if it isn't it time to call Dutch medical care in Indonesia disastrous in itself?