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)