The period after 1945, after independence, is characterized by many developments, not in the least in the field of healthcare. The origin of many hospitals has been hidden by a large span of time. Nevertheless it may be worthwhile to look back for purposes of medical history and individual curiosity. At occasions of celebrations or jubilees of individual hospitals, the organizing committee may be writing a jubilee edition and may want to reach back in the distant past and know about achievements and people that were important and helpful to further the development of the organization.
It was in the month of June 2018 that a conference was held at Jakarta. It was the first joint meeting of the Asian Society of the History of Medicine and HOMSEA (History of Medicine in Southeast Asia). The chairman of the meeting was Professor Dr. Sangkot Marzuki, president of the AIPI (Indonesian Academy of Science). The central theme of the conference was: Colonial Medicine in Post-Colonial Times: Continuity, Transition and Change. During this meeting a book was launched that described the medical research in colonial times. The title of this book was: ‘The Medical Journal of the Dutch Indies (1852-1942: A Platform for Medical Research’. Some time after this presentation the Indonesian translation was published: ‘Journal Geneeskundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indie 1852-1942: Mimbar Penelitian Kedokteran di Hindia Belanda'(Jakarta: AIPI 2018).
My contribution to the conference was called: ‘Hospitals before and after Independence: Continuity, Transition and Change’. I tried in this contribution to demonstrate some continuance in the hospital sphere by showing the old buildings of some general and specialized hospitals and their appearance nowadays. I had visited some of the present day hospitals and found a lot of information with the Ministry of Health of Indonesia to complete this picture.
To get some idea about the continuance after independence, I selected a limited number of categories that were important in the pre-independence period:
Public general hospitals (Umum)
Historical Hospitals 