Medical checkup for pilgrims to be tighter

JAKARTA (JP): The government plans to tighten the medical checkup of anyone planning to join the haj pilgrimage next year.

Welcoming the last batch of pilgrims from Saudi Arabia at Halim Perdanakusuma airport yesterday, Minister of Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taher said the 765 Indonesian pilgrims who died in this year's pilgrimage was quite a high figure.

To reduce the number of fatalities next year, the government would tighten the medical examinations of would-be pilgrims, especially for the elderly, he said.

"Only the healthy ones deserve to perform the haj," he said at the airport, giving his evaluation of the operation to bring home nearly 200,000 Indonesian pilgrims.

Also present at the welcoming ceremony were Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto, Saudi Arabia Ambassador Abdullah A. Alim and Jakarta Deputy governor R.S. Museno.

Lung and heart diseases were said to be the chief cause of deaths among Indonesians in this year's pilgrimage. The majority were aged above 60 years old. In comparison, 570 of 196,000 Indonesian pilgrims died last year.

Tarmizi, on behalf of the government, expressed his condolences to the relatives of the deceased pilgrims and said he would pray to Allah that they would become martyrs.

The minister, whose office coordinates the massive operation to send and bring home Indonesian haj pilgrims each year, criticized the national carrier Garuda Indonesia for the long delays of many of its flights during the returning operation.

He said he had sent Garuda a letter demanding improvement in services next year.

The government pays Garuda Rp 800 billion ($333 million) every year for the haj flight services, making it the airline's biggest client, he said. "Garuda should pay greater attention to the needs of pilgrims by improving its services," he said.

Garuda operated 470 flights to take the pilgrims to Saudi Arabia and 454 to bring them home.

Haryanto said that overall there was an improvement in Garuda's efforts to minimize flight delays. This year, the delays affected 8.3 percent of all flights compared to 12.21 percent last year.

The delays occurred during the returning operation, mostly due to technical problems with the planes, he said.

He said the long delays, sometimes up to 27 hours, was not acceptable. "This should be a lesson (for Garuda) that it won't happen again next year," he said.

He said Garuda would look into the problem of lost luggage which also undermined this year's operation.

As the haj operation wound up yesterday, there were still 800 unclaimed bags at Building III of the Pondok Gede haj dormitory. (11)