'Private hospitals tend to do unnecessary tests'

'Private hospitals tend to do unnecessary tests'

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Medical Association asks the government to grant it the authority to revoke the license of profiteering doctors who subject their patients to unnecessary tests.

Association chairman Azrul Azwar told a hearing with the House of Representatives Commission VIII on health yesterday that a threat of license revocation might prove to be a more effective means to check such doctors, than the current punishment of expulsion from the association.

"If the association has the authority to revoke licenses, doctors will be reluctant to compel patients to undergo unnecessary examinations or treatments," he said.

Azrul also lashed out at some private hospitals for profiteering on people's suffering, by also compelling patients to take unnecessary tests. This practice leads to the high cost medication, he said.

"Many private hospitals give patients complicated treatments, instead of the standard ones, " he said. "As a result, patients have to pay a lot more than they should."

By such profiteering, some hospitals are able to recoup their investments of billions of rupiah within three years, he said. Most of the hospitals he spoke about have foreign investments, and not those which belong to social welfare foundations, he added.

"You understand how that can happen. Patients with only minor ailments are made to take expensive treatment which may not even be relevant to their condition," he charged. "Those hospitals and the doctors are out to get as much money as they can."

Azrul's criticism is by no means new. For the past several years, health workers and consumers organizations alike have been protesting the practice of subjecting patients to various, often unnecessary tests and treatments. The debates on hospitals "commercializing" their service and neglecting their "social responsibility" have often been held.

Leaders of consumer protection campaigns have often said that hospitals should put compassion and charity before other considerations, including profits.

The hospitals, however, have their own advocates. It was reported in 1992, for instance, that almost every private hospital suffers an average loss of Rp 100 million annually, due to patients' inability to pay.

Management experts have often urged hospital administrators to treat their services as an economic commodity which needs to be managed along economic lines.

Yesterday, Azrul also spoke about foreign doctors reportedly opening practice in Indonesia. He said that, so far, no foreign doctors have been given permission to practice here.

He said foreign doctors are allowed only to conduct activities which aim at transferring their skills and technology to local doctors. "These foreign doctors are forbidden to take money from their patients," Azrul said.

Azrul criticized the local community for believing that foreign doctors are better than local ones. "They are foreign, but not necessarily better," he said.

He called on the government to set up policies regarding foreign doctors, once the doors are opened to them in the course of industrial liberalization.

The government, for instance, should subject those doctors to certain requirements and tests, he said.

So far, the association, which was established in Oct. 24, 1950, has 33,656 members, or about 95 percent of Indonesian doctors, in its 234 branches in 24 provinces. (31)