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.