Hospitals urged to set higher service standards
Hospitals urged to set higher service standards
JAKARTA (JP): Hospitals in Indonesia should set higher
standards of services and professionalism to survive global
competition, the chairman of the Indonesian Hospital Association
says.
The first thing that hospital management and personnel must do
is shed the prevailing attitude that patients need them more than
they need patients, Samsi Jacobalis said on Saturday.
"No matter how bad their services are, they believe patients
will always come back," Samsi said during a media briefing at
Pelni Hospital to announce the association's plan to hold a
congress on Nov. 25-28 in Jakarta.
Current services standards are simply inadequate, he said.
"Medical services providers should set new standards that put
customer, or patient, satisfaction first," said the dean of the
Tarumanagara University School of Medicine.
Samsi warned of the growing competition facing hospitals and
doctors. Now that foreign investors are permitted to build
hospitals in the country more foreign physicians are coming to
work here.
He said hospitals must also keep up with changes in medical
technology and in customer expectations.
"If we continue the old practices without considering changes
in the medical world, patients will abandon us," he said.
Many wealthy Indonesians already go abroad for medical
treatment, mostly to neighboring Singapore where the quality of
services are superior, he said.
"We are far below the United States and Europe, and even
Singapore and Malaysia," Samsi said.
He said Indonesia has seven years to prepare itself before the
government fully opens the medical sector to foreign investors
and doctors.
On another issue, Samsi questioned the effectiveness of the
government's policy requiring luxury hospitals to allocate 10
percent of their beds for poor people.
"We know that poor people are afraid to even enter luxury
hospitals," he said.
It would be more effective if the hospitals were required to
treat the poor by taking their services to a community, he said.
He also called on the government to establish a national
strategy for the medical industry, not only to deal with the
growing foreign competition but also to deal with the perennial
question of funding health services for the poor.
There are currently 1,039 hospitals in Indonesia, comprising
835 general hospitals and 204 specialized hospitals. Of these,
524 hospitals are run by the government and the rest by private
operators. (ste)