#64 Healthcare and Deforestation
With Dr Hotlin Ompusunggu
Dr Hotlin Ompusunggu
Dr Hotlin, a licensed dentist, comes originally from Sumatra. She has four years experience serving in an Indonesian government clinic in a rural part of Sumatra, including two years as the director of a mobile clinic and on-board dentist that traveled via boat in rural Sumatra. She also coordinated medical and dental teams in the wake of the Tsunami in Aceh.
In 2007 she co-founded ASRI (Alam Sehat Lestari), an NGO in West Kalimantan, Indonesia; combines conservation and health care in remote southwest Borneo by giving local people health care incentives to preserve the globally important rainforest.
In 2019 Hotlin started another NGO in North Sumatra, Healthy Planet Indonesia (HePI) to replicate the integrated healthcare-conservation approach. Hotlin’s passion lies at the intersection of human and environmental health.
She believes that, 'not only can we have healthy people and a healthy environment, but the two are fundamentally interlinked.'
