Officials reluctant to probe drug case

Officials reluctant to probe drug case

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

City health officials seemed reluctant to launch an
investigation in the face of allegations that subsidized and
donated medicines are finding their way onto the black market
across the capital.

City Health Agency spokeswoman Evy Zelfino said that health
officials had already dispatched a team to look into the charges.

"Our inquiry has found no violations -- either in any public
health centers, or pharmaceutical storage facilities here," she
told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

So far, however, the agency has only inspected one public
health center in Tanah Abang, along with a Central Jakarta
pharmaceutical storage facility.

Therefore, it has yet to investigate the other 279 health
centers and five pharmaceutical storage sites across the city.

"We had examined monthly reports in the Tanah Abang health
center, and in the Central Jakarta pharmaceutical storage
facility -- we had also seen a medicine supply there," Evy said.

In regulating the distribution of medicine around the city,
the agency relies only on the reports, which outline rules about
the transfer of medicines between health posts and pharmaceutical
storage.

The health agency is responsible for the distribution of the
medicines as an arm of the Ministry of Health.

The medicines are first sent to a provincial pharmaceutical
warehouse for storage, before being delivered to the five
pharmaceutical storage sites in each of the five mayoralties
here. Finally, from there the medicines are sent to all public
health centers across Jakarta.

Each public health center can order a different amount of
medicine each month, depending on its needs.

When asked about the possible manipulation of the reports, Evy
said, "It might have been done by individuals. Who can guarantee
the truth of the report? But we haven't talked about it any
further."

She insisted that there was no manipulation of the subsidized
and donated medicines here, particularly those for flood victims.

However, Evy confirmed that some of the medicines found by the
Indonesian Health Consumers Empowerment Foundation had been
subsidized, when they should have been available only in public
health centers.

"We did visit the foundation and saw some subsidized and
donated medicine, but we didn't know how it happened," she said,
suggesting that it might have been connected to a theft from a
pharmaceutical warehouse in Sukabumi, West Java.

The foundation revealed on Monday its survey findings that
half of the subsidized and donated medicine for low-income people
was sold on the black market here.

The survey also found that several public health centers had
charged their patients more than the official fee of Rp 2,000 for
both medicine and medical treatment per each visit as a result of
the overall increase in medicine prices.

City Bylaws No. 3/1999 and No. 9/2000 on tariffs stipulate
that no patient at a health center must pay more than Rp 2,000
for basic medical treatment, including medicine. The tariff is
valid for medical treatment in the morning.

Afternoon patients must pay no more than Rp 5,000.

Evy confirmed that the bylaw is presently valid. When the Post
asked her about the violation of the tariff, she replied,"I don't
know about that -- we have not yet received the information,"
refusing to comment further.