Disadvantaged demand free health service
Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
It looked like just another rally on Wednesday, when about 50 people holding cardboard posters stood inside the Ministry of Health compound in South Jakarta, chanting their demands.
All other components of a rally were also there; the reporters who were taking notes and pictures, and the police, who were blocking the protesters from entering the building.
But this rally was the first time poor Jakartans had marched to demand their right to access to free health services as promised by the government.
And the protesters are in dire need of health services.
Umsiah joined the protest although her neck was swollen, the pain sometimes so unbearable she could not sleep at night.
"I take traditional medicine to ease the pain," she said.
About two weeks ago she was denied health care from Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital in Central Jakarta although she had produced a letter from her subdistrict that she could not afford to pay for medical treatment and was classified as poor. The letter, she said, was issued by the subdistrict head in Depok, where she lives.
Couple Djuhara and Rumiati brought home their one-year-old daughter Sintiya, who was being treated for three months at state-owned Persahabatan Hospital in Rawamangun, East Jakarta, for inflammation of the brain membrane.
The parents, who had letters from the North Kelapa Gading subdistrict chief and the City Social Welfare Agency, were relieved of hospital expenses. However, they still had to pay for the medicine not listed on the free medicine list approved in the government's social safety net program.
They had spent up to Rp 3 million (US$353) up until November, when Sintiya's case hit the newspapers.
"After that, all medicines were provided for free," said Rumiati.
Demanding that the ministry return all the money they should not have paid, the protesters refused to meet anybody but Minister Achmad Sujudi himself.
Eventually, the director general of medical services, Eddie Naydial Roesdal, met the protesters to represent the minister whom he said was not in the office.
He said that anyone with only a Gakin (poor family) card was eligible for free health services. "One card will do," he said, adding that drugs should be provided for free to Gakin holders.
Eddie and Faiq Bahfen, the ministry's head for legal and organizations division, said the ministry would look into the 45 cases recorded by the Legal Aid Institute for Health (LBH Kesehatan), who organized the protest.
Later in the day, the Minister told the press that the Rp 750 billion generated from the reduced fuel subsidy fund this year was not enough to cover all of the medical services for the poor.
However, he said, such a health scheme for the poor would have a lasting source of funds in the form of a health insurance scheme that would be established by the government.