Cipto Hospital needs bigger budget to cover operations

JAKARTA (JP): The yearly budget allocated by the government to the state Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital barely covers the hospital's expenses as the number of poor patients who need to be subsidized is increasing, a hospital executive said on Tuesday.

Hermansyur Kartowisastro, the hospital's director, said the budget of approximately Rp 21 billion for the 1999/2000 fiscal year was not enough. "It can only finance our activities until December," he told reporters while commemorating the hospital's 80th anniversary.

"Even if we can survive in the coming months, we still have to wait until next March for the new budget to pay last year's debts," he said, adding that the hospital needed at least Rp 66 billion to run all its activities this year.

Hermansyur explained that his administration would cope with the financial problems by asking for credit from the hospital's suppliers like pharmaceutical and hospital equipment producers. "But we can only get credit from a very few suppliers," he said, without mentioning the name of the companies.

He said, however, the hospital would keep giving quality medical treatment and services to patients as well as continuing to improve its facilities in the old building located on Jl. Diponegoro, Central Jakarta.

"We will build more comfortable rooms to provide better services to lure middle and high-income patients who are able to pay more so that we can afford to subsidize the less fortunate patients," Hermansyur said, adding that regardless of their financial accountability, "every patient will receive equal treatment".

Hermansyur said the hospital had suffered financial losses as it had to subsidize the treatment of poor patients, whose number had markedly increased due to the economic crisis dogging the country for two years.

According to the hospital's records, subsidies given by the hospital increased from around Rp 5 billion in the 1997/1998 fiscal year to Rp 8.5 billion in the last fiscal year. (01)