Hundreds Of Medical Devices Employees Take Action In Front Of The Palace, Invite The Community To Support Using Local Products: Refuse Imports!

Photo: Special

JAKARTA - Hundreds of employees from Bogor, Depok and Jakarta from five domestic manufacturers of Medical Devices (Alkes), especially antigen swab devices, held a demonstration in front of the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, Monday, December 13.

In their action, they invite all Indonesians to support President Joko Widodo's policies through the Proudly Made Indonesia National Movement (GERNAS BBI) by being proud of locally made products, especially medical devices.

"Let's support Pak Jokowi's commitment to always be proud of homemade products. I think this is a real form of government support for creating jobs using local medical equipment," said Action Coordinator Luthfi Wicaksono during a demonstration in front of the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, quoted as saying from the written statement.

The five companies that held this action were PT Taishan Alkes Indonesia, PT Sri Tita Medika, PT Tjahaya Inti Gemilang, PT Intertekno Grafika Sejati and PT Penjalindo Nusantara. Not only that, this action was also supported by the Coalition of the Local Medical Medical Workers Communities.

In addition to supporting GERNAS BBI, the demonstrators also called for the government to eradicate the medical equipment mafia and imported mafia by refusing to use imported goods.

"If the government has a strong 'political will', medical equipment such as this antigen swab device should not need to be imported, because imported medical devices are very expensive," he said.

Moreover, he continued, these medical devices can be produced domestically. Therefore, they asked President Jokowi to be more strict with his subordinates so that he prioritized local antigen swabs rather than imported goods.

This is very important for the survival of the domestic industry. He asserted, the impact of the government's impartiality on local industries, many companies went out of business because the Indonesian medical device market was flooded with imported products.

"We can honestly say that the future of the company where we work is threatened due to the large number of imported antigen swab devices that are used and circulating in the market. And our employees are threatened with layoffs," he said.

In the same place, one of the orators, Sahala Pohan, emphasized that the government's alignment with imported medical equipment is detrimental to the national industry. This is clearly at the expense of the local medical equipment industry.

"For this reason, we ask President Jokowi's attention so that he really pays attention to the fate of this local industry," he said.

Actually, he said, the momentum of COVID-19 should be used to increase the ability and capacity of the national medical equipment. This also shows the world that Indonesia is proud of its homemade products.

But oddly enough, the government is busy importing medical supplies that can be produced domestically.

"And in the end, we will go back 25 years," he explained.