SKN to provide the poor free medical treatment
Dewi Santoso, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Every citizen, especially the poor, will be assured of access to health and medical treatment under the new National Health System (SKN), which recognizes health as a basic human right.
Director General of Public Health Azrul Azwar said on Monday that the costs would be covered under the government funded Community Health Improvement (UKM) program. Poor citizens will be given health cards for free medical services in community health centers in every district.
Initially, the UKM provides at least six basic services: health promotion; maternal and child healthcare and family planning; better nutrition; environmental health; contagious diseases elimination; and basic health treatment.
"We hope through this program, Indonesia will be free from polio and measles next year," said Azrul.
Healthcare remains a luxury for the poor as evidenced by many hospitals that fail to provide proper treatment for poor patients because they cannot afford to pay the deposit.
Recently, doctors in the Jakarta administration-owned Tarakan Hospital provided a man, Sumaryono, with poor service and later discharged him without any medication nor follow-up treatment because his mother could not afford to pay the Rp 2.8 million (US$330) medical bill.
He was denied admission to the state Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, also in Central Jakarta, before an individual financed his surgery at St Carolus private hospital.
Abigail Siging was another case. The 18-year-old mother from Likupang subdistrict in the North Sulawesi capital of Manado, had to deliver her baby in the corridor of Malalayang General Hospital, just in front of the emergency room, as she could not afford to pay a Rp 3 million deposit for her Caesarean operation and treatment.
Azwar said the new SKN would prevent hospitals from denying the poor or providing them with inadequate healthcare.
The system would be implemented under a government regulation next year, because it would take too long to expect the House of Representatives to pass it into law.
Minister of Health Achmad Sujudi will launch the campaign for the new SKN on Nov. 12. The old national health system was launched in 1982, aimed at providing a community health center in every district across the country.
The new health system is aimed at achieving a Healthy Indonesia by 2010.
To implement the UKM, the government will allocate 5 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product or 15 percent of the total regional budget (APBD). It means the first year of the scheme will cost the state around Rp 5.85 trillion.
The government's share accounts for 30 percent of the national health system funding, with the rest to be paid by the public and private sector, which will receive tax incentives in return for their donations.
Marius Widjajarta of the Indonesian Health Consumer Empowerment Foundation (YPKKI) welcomed the new SKN for adopting the Law No. 8/1999 on consumer protection.
"The new SKN will provide healthcare and medical treatment equally to every citizen, regardless of their economic status. It means poor people will receive the same standard of health treatment as others," he said.