Bill to ban hospitals from rejecting patients
Bill to ban hospitals from rejecting patients
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A bill is being drafted to allow the government to fine or
prosecute hospitals refusing to treat patients, particularly the
poor.
"In the proposed bill, hospitals will be prohibited from
refusing to treat patients for any reason," Minister of Health
Siti Fadilah Supari said on Monday.
"If they reject a patient, they will face criminal
prosecution," he added.
The minister said the government hoped to submit the hospital
services bill to the House of Representatives in November for
deliberation.
The new bill is aimed at preventing a repeat of what happened
last month when a two-week-old baby, Muhammad Zulfikri, was
denied treatment for jaundice by six hospitals in Jakarta, which
cited either fears of non-payment or a lack of space.
After almost 11 hours of being bounced around from one
hospital to another, Zulfikri was eventually admitted by the
privately-run Harapan Bunda Hospital in East Jakarta. Now his
health is improving had he has been discharged.
Five of the six hospitals that refused to treat Zulfikri were
the Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, Gatot Subroto Army Hospital, Budhi
Asih Hospital, Mintohardjo Hospital and Harapan Kita Hospital.
All of them are either run by the government or the Indonesian
Military.
The sixth hospital is run by the Indonesian Christian
University.
Supari said that under the law as it stood at the moment, the
Ministry of Health was powerless to impose sanctions, save for
verbal reprimands, on hospitals that rejected patients for
financial reasons.
The minister called on everybody who had experience of
cavalier treatment from a hospital, or who wanted to make
suggestions, to text her at 9611.
She said she had decided to launch this service as public
complaints about medical services and other health issues took
too long to reach her desk.
"This gives the public the impression that the health ministry
is always tardy or is doing nothing at all," Supari added.
Aside from the requiring hospitals not to turn away patients,
the proposed bill will also deal with the organizing, funding and
classification of hospitals.
It also aims at provide more clarity on how hospitals are
supposed to provide care and treatment to the more than 60
million poor people whose medical care is guaranteed by the
government under the national health insurance scheme.
However, Supari conceded that the government often had
problems in identifying who was actually eligible for free
medical treatment.
"It seems that a lot of health cards have been handed out to
the wrong people," she said.