Indonesia's pilot health insurance scheme, introduced in November last year, was a good effort to solve the health issues of over 5 million poor people residing there. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work.
What the state officials didn't prepare for, was a major kink in the plan –– with long queues forming at already crowded hospitals and healthcare centers with patients that were not even ill, and were merely seeking advantage of the health insurance, a sick baby was turned down by 10 hospitals, after which she succumbed to her respiratory complications.
Lisa Darawati, mother of Dera, who was merely one-week old and was born premature, sought medical help from 10 different hospitals in Jakarta, all of which were either too crowded, or lacked proper medical equipment to treat Dera. The death of Dera has now given rise to an outcry in the local media, with all the 10 hospitals being blamed.
"If Jakarta itself is not ready, I don't know how we can say other less advanced cities can be ready," Palmira Bachtiar, senior researcher at Indonesia's private SMERU Research Institute, said.
This scheme, which was actually planned to help save lives and provide proper medical care to the poverty-stricken and lower-income individuals in the area, has failed, as unexpectedly long queues and crowded hospitals became an every-day problem, with people coming in and trying to make use of the health insurance as far as possible.
"If we did not start in November, there would be 500,000 people sick, but at home," Jakarta governor Joko Widodo told Reuters during a recent interview.
The Jakarta pilot scheme, which was developed 'ideally', suggested that the patients go to a clinic first, get a referral from a physician if they actually require services from a hospital, and then visit the hospital. This pattern, if followed, may prevent overcrowding and help things move more smoothly, thus preventing many more tragic deaths like that of Dera.
More hospital beds are needed, according to Widodo, and with the number of patients in the hospitals jumping a whopping 70 percent of that before, this seems to be true.
"Universal healthcare is a game-changer ... and if companies are not prepared for that then they are going to lose out," Emmanuel Wehry, chief Indonesia marketing officer for French insurer AXA Financial said.
With a rough estimate of $13-$16 billion being used in this insurance scheme, if it is fully implemented, this healthcare program may prove to be quite useful, especially for those below the poverty line.
Most of the patients are being treated properly, health minister Dr. Nafisa Mboi claimed, even with the number of patients at Cipto jumping 25 percent since the introduction of the pilot program.
Seems like there's definitely a lot that the people of Indonesia can gain from this program. What it needs is some proper management.
