Hospital suffers insult to injury in recent violence

JAKARTA (JP): Located close to the scene of clashes between troops and students last week, private Jakarta Hospital has spent hundreds of millions of rupiah on the free treatment of those injured in the conflicts.

Interviewed by The Jakarta Post on Monday, executives of the hospital also said that a number of valuable paintings hanging on the walls had been stolen.

Such experiences were not only faced by the hospital, but also by visitors and hospital staff.

"On Friday night, for example, the fuel from 20 motorcycles in the parking lot was siphoned. The gasoline was stolen to make Molotov cocktails," the head of the hospital's medical records, Adhi Setyonugroho, said.

The hospital security guards have been unable to identify the culprits, he added.

Yulian, a public relations staffer, said the hospital's occupancy rate had not been affected despite, or perhaps because of, the unfavorable situation and the clashes between mobs and security troops outside the hospital.

A strange incident, however, took place on Friday when violent clashes between student protesters and troops took place throughout the day, he said.

In the morning, he recalled, patients being treated in VIP rooms hastily left the hospital without explanation even though they were still badly in need of medical treatment.

"They did not complaint about the hospital service, but the clashes probably made them uneasy," he said.

The hospital, owned by the Jakarta Hospital Foundation, formed an emergency unit team six months ago to anticipate bloody clashes in busy areas in the city.

The team is on call 24 hours and all of the hospital staff are obliged to help during emergency situations, such as those last week.

"Whenever there is a student movement, all of us have to be prepared to stay in the hospital all night," Adhi said.

After the May riots last year, the hospital was appointed one of the emergency centers in South Jakarta during any ensuing riots.

The Ministry of Health and the Jakarta Police help the hospital by providing a number of paramedics.

Other doctors from other hospital also offer their help.

Last week, the hospital treated some 100 victims of unrest, two of whom spent two days in a ward.

"If Saint Carolus Hospital claims it suffered some Rp 200 million losses for 17 victims in the last month of riots, imagine how much it cost us for one night in last week's clashes," Adhi said.

Even though the hospital has to pay for all of the medication used in the emergency room during riots, the hospital management is reluctant to call it a loss.

"This is our social function as a hospital," Yulian said.

But "some of the nurses here jokingly say that if such clashes continue we won't get our bonuses this year", Adhi said.

Some of the staff have quipped that the hospital should be immediately relocated to Bekasi, east of here, to get away from the street battles. (04)