Most hospitals are Y2K compliant
Most hospitals are Y2K compliant
JAKARTA (JP): Most hospitals in Indonesia are prepared to face
the Y2K bug during the changing millennium at midnight on Dec.
31, the Ministry of Health said on Tuesday.
As a precaution, however, especially where people's lives are
at stake, hospitals are taking no chances and are resetting the
year on their lifesaving equipment to 1996 or 1972 to prevent the
likelihood of computer glitches during the rollover to 2000.
The chief of the Ministry of Health's Y2K team, Muharso, said
47 of the 304 hospitals which were prone to the Y2K bug had not
reported to the government that they had resolved the problem.
While refusing to name the hospitals, he said most of them
were located in eastern Indonesia.
The National Y2K team on Monday set up an alert post to
monitor six areas deemed particularly critical to public
services, including air traffic control systems,
telecommunications and power distribution. The team has dropped
hospitals from the critical list because they are viewed as fully
Y2K compliant.
The Y2K, or millennium, bug is a problem in old computer chips
which, if not updated, could mistake '00' in the year 2000 as
1900. The error could create problems ranging from power outages
to billing errors.
Indonesia has 1,096 hospitals, but only 304 of them were
deemed to be affected by the millennium bug.
The Ministry of Health has prepared a report looking into the
potential disruptions to medical and hospital services by the Y2K
bug and proposed some fast remedial programs.
Since the government did not have the means to upgrade the
entire computer systems in hospitals, the Ministry of Health had
recommended contingency plans to deal with emergency situations.
"We have trained the hospitals staff across the country to
prepare for emergency situations. We have also designated
reference hospitals in all provincial capitals if the worst
happens during the changing from Dec. 31 to Jan. 1," he said.
These hospitals would accept patients referred from other
hospitals that may develop problems during the changeover.
In Jakarta, the Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital and
Fatmawati Hospital have been designated as reference hospitals.
All of their equipment had passed the compliancy test, he said.
Budget shortages also mandated fast remedial measures.
Hospitals would turn back the year on their lifesaving
equipment, such as heart pacemakers and intensive care unit
equipment by four or 28 years, he said.
The Ministry of Health has also various responsibilities to
its top people to ensure Y2K compliance in the health sector.
The director general for public services will be responsible
for medical equipment, while the secretary general will be
responsible for the non-medical equipment.
Minister of Health Achmad Sujudi separately said that the
directors and owners of hospitals would be held accountable for
fatalities that occurred because of computer glitches.
The director general of the public health service will be
legally responsible for state-run hospitals, and the National
Police chief and Indonesian Military commander will be legally
responsible military-owned hospitals.
He nevertheless assured the public that any computer glitches,
if they did occur in the health sector, would not be life
threatening.
"The Y2K bug may affect hospitals' data bases, but not the
lifesaving equipment," Sujudi told reporters. (04)