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)