Doctors and insurers urge a review of AIDS laws
JAKARTA (JP): Doctors and an insurance company are urging the government to review labor laws to help ease the AIDS problem which will inevitably affect the work force.
"Our labor regulations practically prevent the business sector, especially the health insurance industry, to give assistance in dealing with the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)," said Dr. Kartono Mohammad, chairman of the Indonesian Medical Association (IDI), during a seminar on the AIDS disease and the private sector here Thursday.
Government figures say that at the end of last month there were 213 cases of AIDS in Indonesia, which has more than doubled from 92 in last September. The government does not count the HIV positive figures.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), which co- sponsored the seminar, the global economy will loose at least US$350 billion to the direct and indirect costs of AIDS by the year 2000.
Current laws virtually allow companies to dismiss workers found having "self-inflicted diseases" or "dangerous and contagious sickness", Kartono said.
"HIV and AIDS can be easily interpreted by owners of companies as fitting into those debatable classifications," he said.
The doctor, a well-known AIDS awareness campaigner, also stated that Indonesia lacked ruling which could prevent discriminative treatments toward HIVs and AIDS patients.
"We don't have laws regulating confidentiality and disability, with which doctors and insurance companies can prevent employees from being sacked for contracting a certain disease," Kartono said.
Dr. Alan Emery, an AIDS consultant to the American government, encouraged a constant review of laws and social customs to deal with the deadly disease.
"In reality, the efforts to deal with AIDS frequently run contrary to traditional conventions," he told the seminar.
Insurers
During a press-conference held after the seminar, Stephen T. Moskey, a director of Aetna International-- a multi-national American insurance firm which co-sponsored the seminar -- explained that a certain legal system is required to allow insurers, particularly those which operate through companies, to cover HIVs and AIDS.
"That's why, AIDS coverage by insurers, especially in Asia, needs government help," Moskey said, adding that Aetna already operates in Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea.
Moskey claimed that Aetna does not treat AIDS coverage "any different from other health-related policies".
He said his firm's operation is founded on American laws which guarantee the clients' anonymity which protect their jobs from the employers.
Moskey also said that when the patients will have to be treated in the hospital or undergo home-treatment, they are protected by laws which regulate the terms of disability.
As a result, companies cannot arbitrarily dismiss their workers on the basis of their illness, he said.
Moskey estimated that on average, the costs for treatments of early stage HIVs hover around $5000 to $7000 per year. Treatments for AIDS in its "terminal stage" cost an average of $20,000 per year.
"One way to push costs down is encouraging home-treatments," he said.
All the speakers at the seminar agreed that the best way to deal with AIDS is prevention. (04)