Workers denied medical care: Ministry
Workers denied medical care: Ministry
Dewi Santoso, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
The government needs to revise its policy on workers' welfare, as
most of the country's workers do not have access to medical
services at work, an official says.
Recent data from the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration
showed only 1,173 of approximately 170,000 small, medium and
large enterprises provided health care services recognized by the
government to workers.
"It's a sad fact, given that we enforced Law No. 13/2003 on
labor, which requires companies to provide medical services for
employees," Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration secretary
general Tjepy F. Aloewie told a seminar on occupational health
and safety on Wednesday.
Article 87 of the law requires all companies to apply an
integrated safety and health program to protect their employees.
A Central Statistics Agency survey in 1995 revealed that each
year, a company lost an average 1.05 productive days due to
illnesses, which cost the country over Rp 2.1 trillion (US$2.3
billion) from the decline in productivity.
The survey assumed that one person within the productive age
group of between 26 and 40 years old was capable of earning Rp
15,000 a day.
"We also have a ministerial decree on employee medical
services, but its implementation is far from satisfactory, as
only a very few employee medical services are recognized," said
Tjepy.
Ministerial Decree No. Per. 03/Men/1982 on employee medical
services provides three options: The company can provide its own
medical services, cooperate with doctors or medical institutions
or cooperate with other companies in providing employee medical
services.
"The bottom line is, we need to develop a pilot project on
medical centers for workers, as otherwise, more and more
employees will suffer from poor health, which will contribute to
national economic losses," said Tjepy.
Despite the regulations and legislation on workers' health and
safety, Indonesia has not ratified a 1985 International Labor
Organization convention on occupational health services.