City-owned hospital sound despite crisis

JAKARTA (JP): The four city-owned hospitals are still economically sound despite the prolonged economic crisis, which has severely hit almost all sectors of the economy, an official has claimed.

The head of the service and expertise unit of the City Health Office, A. Chalik Masulili, said Wednesday that the four hospitals -- Koja in North Jakarta, Tarakan in Central Jakarta and Pasar Rebo and Budiasih in East Jakarta -- could survive the crisis because they were still receiving sufficient revenue from patients.

He said the hospitals were able to maintain patient numbers mainly because of their relatively low charges.

"The doctors' tariff can sometimes be half that charged at private hospitals. Our room rate is also cheaper -- only Rp 9,000 (64 U.S. cents) per night for third class compared to between Rp 25,000 and Rp 60,000 per night at private hospitals."

He said the four hospitals received between 600 and 800 patients a day each with bed occupancy rates being maintained at the normal level of 60 percent to 70 percent per month.

Masulili said many private hospitals had reportedly lost at least 10 percent to 20 percent of their patients due to the worsening economic crisis, which discouraged people from seeing doctors or going to the hospital unless they became really sick.

"We assume that some of former private hospital patients have turned to city or state-owned hospitals due to the latter's cheaper charges. But we have not made any study on the phenomenon so we can't give figures," he said.

Masulili added that as a general practitioner himself, he had lost about 20 percent of his patients since early this year.

The prolonged monetary crisis has apparently only affected the four city-owned hospitals to the extent that they are now forced to pay for all their drugs, chemicals and equipment in cash and in advance.

The hospitals were also affected by the soaring prices of drugs, equipment and chemicals needed to support the medical services, Masulili said.

He said the price of X-ray film had increased 200 percent to about Rp 300,000 per pack of 25 exposures, nongeneric drugs 300 percent and the reagents (chemicals used for laboratory tests) 400 percent.

"This has led to an increase in the hospital's current operational costs of between 200 percent and 400 percent compared to July last year.

"But I assure you that it will not make us raise our tariffs."

Masulili said the hospitals tried to balance the higher costs by minimizing the use of water, electricity, gas and medicine.

"It's not that we are cutting our services or giving fewer drugs to save medicine stocks.

"We still maintain the quality of our services, we have only stopped giving patients nonessential drugs. Whenever possible, we also opt to give generic drugs so that patients can still afford the medicine," he added. (cst)