Regional hospitals urged to improve public services
Rita A. Widiadana, The Jakarta Post, Kuta, Bali
Minister of Health Achmad Sujudi has asked regional hospitals across the nation to improve their public services and avoid commercialism in managing their hospitals.
Addressing the opening of the three-day National Congress of provincial and regional hospitals here on Sunday, Sujudi admitted that lack of funds, professionalism and managerial systems had been hampering local hospitals from optimizing their potential as public health organizations.
Representatives of 415 local hospitals around the country are attending the congress, which started on June 23 and will end on Tuesday.
"The management of provincial and regional hospitals has already been transferred to the regional authorities, but the central government is still responsible for monitoring the systems," the minister said.
Sujudi said the central government still allocated ample funds to support the operation of regional hospitals, to implement the social safety net for health programs, and for the development and renovation of hospitals.
"The fund will be channeled and managed by the regional administration," he added.
The transfer of authority from central to local government is expected to encourage local hospitals to be more independent and efficient.
Under two ministerial decrees issued in 2001 by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Home Affairs, provincial and regional hospitals are under the auspices of governors or regents together with local legislative bodies.
Previously, local hospitals were controlled by the Ministry of Health's provincial offices, which were blamed by many for introducing bureaucratic procedures.
"This means that any local hospital should be able to provide its best service to the public without having to wait for instructions from the central government," the minister said.
Minister of Home Affairs Hari Sabarno, who also attended the conference, added that many local hospitals, especially those operating in remote places, have not yet been able to provide even basic health services to the public.
"I have found that some hospitals are managed by unskilled people with no background in medicine or management," he said.
Meanwhile, chairman of the Indonesian Local Hospital Association (ARSADA) Umar Wahid confirmed that the majority of local hospitals were still relying on the government's meager subsidies.
"Only 120 out of the 415 local hospitals in Indonesia are self-managed. This means that these 120 hospitals are allowed to manage their own revenues and do not have to distribute them to the provincial government's treasury agency. The other 295 hospitals must distribute their income to the provincial and regional governments.
"The 120 self-operated hospitals still focus their services on low-income patients by implementing a cross-subsidy system," said Wahid, who is a younger brother of former president Abdurrahman Wahid.