City to go ahead with hospital construction

City to go ahead with hospital construction

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Despite objections from city councillors, the city administration
will go ahead with its plan to build a Rp 15.1 billion (US$1.6
million) two-story hospital in Thousand Islands regency.

"The presence of a hospital in the regency is of paramount
importance to provide immediate and cheaper medical treatment to
patients with relatively mild complaints," City Health Agency
head Abdul Chalik Masulili said in a hearing with City Council's
Commission E on people's welfare on Wednesday.

According to Chalik, patients in need of hospital treatment in
the regency currently have to pay between Rp 2.5 million and Rp 3
million for ambulance boats to reach nearby hospitals, expenses
they could save if there was a hospital.

City councillors have fiercely opposed the proposal, arguing
that the need was not urgent and that it would only put another
burden on the city administration

Currently, the regency, which has a population of around
18,000, mostly families of fishermen, has only six public health
centers, all of which have no rooms for in-patients.

Residents who need to be hospitalized must take costly
ambulance boats to enjoy medical treatment at the city-run Koja
Hospital in North Jakarta or the Cengkareng Hospital in West
Jakarta.

Chalik said the hospital was necessary to provide immediate
help for divers and fishermen who suffer decompression sickness
after diving or snorkeling activities with hyperbaric chambers
available in the hospital.

Decompression sickness is a dangerous and occasionally lethal
condition caused by nitrogen bubbles that form in the blood and
other tissues of divers who surface too quickly. Sufferers
require immediate treatment in a hyperbaric chamber in which the
air pressure is gradually increased and decreased to allow
nitrogen bubbles to shrink and safely diffuse out of the blood
and body tissues.

The plan to develop the two-story hospital occupying 2,447
square meters of land on the islet of Pramuka has been opposed by
the city councillors who urged the administration to delay its
construction, arguing that the presence of hospital was not
urgent as the six public health centers in the regency would be
able to accommodate resident's needs.

"The relevant issue, I think, is how to upgrade services in
those centers instead of building a new hospital," commission E
chairman Dani Anwar asserted.

Dani referred to a prevailing regulation issued by the
Ministry of Health, which stipulates that the development of a
hospital requires minimum population of 25,000, far higher than
the current population in the regency of only 19,200 residents.

Another councillor Achmad Husin Alaydrus said that the
operation of the hospital would only burden the administration
who would have to subsidize its operations.

"It is easy to develop a new hospital, but please keep in mind
how much money the administration has to provide for subsidizing
the operation of the new hospital," Alaydrus said.