Destitute dengue patients get bills paid

Destitute dengue patients get bills paid

Damar Harsanto and Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post,
Jakarta

The yawning gap between the state emergency policy on dengue
fever and its actual implementation is nowhere more evident than
at hospitals where they have been reduced to giving the bare
minimum medical treatment for impoverished patients.

Instead of the expected free medical treatment for all dengue
fever patients, the Jakarta administration has only provided the
facility to poor patients and/or those who are treated in the
least expensive hospital wards.

Head of the Jakarta Health Agency, Abdul Chalik Masulili,
calculated on Tuesday that the expenses for the free medical
treatment provided at the 16 recommended hospitals across the
capital would be around Rp 15 billion (US$1.76 million), which
amounted to less than the allocated Rp 20 billion.

"We're ready to reimburse the hospitals... (But) the hospitals
should first file their bills with us for reimbursement," he
explained.

Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso asserted that the emergency funds
had come from various sources: the Rp 20 billion would be taken
from the social welfare fund for poor families, or Gakin, and the
Rp 7.2 billion from the city budget.

But the city budget will only allocate money for the dengue
eradication campaign, which includes fumigation.

Sutiyoso said his office had emergency funds from the central
government as a back up, but he did not mention the amount.

The Ministry of Health said a total of Rp 150 billion is ready
to help covering all costs needed to curb the dengue outbreak
which has already hit 26 provinces since earlier this year.

Jakarta City Council has pushed the administration to use its
Rp 800 billion reserve fund for the purpose, demanding the bypass
of unnecessary bureaucracy to relieve the hospitals from the
mounting operational costs.

The health agency spokeswoman Evy Zelvino told The Jakarta
Post that the agency had prepared Rp 58 billion in funding for
hospital claims and other assistance to the poor.

According to the agency, a patient who does not have a Gakin
card, can get a subsidy or free medical care, depending on the
hospital.

For example, the city-run Tarakan Hospital in West Jakarta
said it would provide free treatment for patients from outside
Jakarta, while the city-run Budhi Asih Hospital in East Jakarta
said that it would only provide free treatment for Jakarta
residents.

Meanwhile, Deputy Director of Services of the city-run Tarakan
Hospital Sutirto Basuki said that his hospital was currently
collecting the necessary paperwork for the claims process. Budhi
Asih Hospital is undertaking a similar process.

Responding to most hospitals' concerns over the prolonged
bureaucratic procedures for the reimbursement, Evy said that the
agency would do its best to validate the claims as soon as
possible so the hospitals could maintain their services to the
public.

The agency has recorded, as of Tuesday morning, that the
number of patients suffering dengue fever in the city limits has
increased to 7,950 patients, with the death toll at 59.