Public's help urged for Black Friday victims
Public's help urged for Black Friday victims
JAKARTA (JP): A senior official of Cipto Mangunkusumo General
Hospital has appealed for a sympathetic public to provide
financial support for the medical treatment of the victims of
last weeks bloody Black Friday clashes.
Soepardi Soedibyo, the hospital's deputy director for general
and financial affairs, told reporters on Thursday that he made
the appeal because the state-run hospital was forced to subsidize
the costs for the victims' medications and accommodations.
"We will face difficulties if the sympathizers donate only to
the patients themselves. On the one hand, we pay the bills for
their treatment, and on the other hand, they also receive money,"
he said.
Soepardi said that only a few people, including the Rector of
Bandung Institute of Technology Lilik Hendrajaya and Coordinating
Minister for Development Supervision and State Administrative
Reform Hartarto Sastrosoenarto, have so far pledged to give
financial support to the hospital.
The hospital's decision to waive all the costs for the
treatment of the patients came after the Minister of Health Farid
A. Moeloek pledged on Monday that the government would cover all
of the victims' medical expenses.
Moeloek had also asked the 20 hospitals in the city that
treated the victims of the bloody clashes to list all the
medicines and services given to the patients, in order to get
immediate restitution from the government.
According to Soepardi, his hospital has spent a huge amount of
money treating the people killed and wounded in the Friday the
13th clashes at the Semanggi cloverleaf and other locations in
the city.
"The medication and the equipment used for them are of course
expensive, particularly if the patients had to undergo surgery
and treatment in the intensive care unit," he said.
Soepardi revealed that most of the victims were treated in the
hospital's Intensive Care Unit, which cost the hospital more
money compared to the amount spent treating patients in other
units.
Soepardi also doubted the government's good-will in
reimbursing the hospital's costs during such a difficult economic
situation.
"So far, we haven't received any financial support from the
government."
"If the government's restitution really comes, it will be paid
in stages. It won't be fully paid at once," Soepardi said.
Thirteen victims, including six with gunshot wounds, were
still receiving medical treatment at the hospital.
Two of the patients, six-year-old Ayu Ratna Sari and Paulus, a
student at the University of Indonesia, were still in critical
condition in the hospital's intensive care unit.
Ayu and another patient, Imelda, a student at St. Mary
Academy, reportedly paid some amount of money prior to their
surgeries.
Soepardi said the hospital would refund their money as soon as
it received compensation from the government. (ivy)