Charged With COVID-19 Treatment Costs Of IDR 150-750 Million, Residents Report The Ministry Of Health To The Ombudsman

Photo by Piron Guillaume on Unsplash

JAKARTA - The LaporCovid-19 Coalition revealed that a number of COVID-19 referral hospitals charge up to hundreds of millions of rupiah for treating COVID-19 patients. As a result, five residents from Jakarta, Surabaya, and Bali who were victims of the imposition of fees reported it to the Ombudsman of the Republic of Indonesia.

A member of the Coalition LaporCovid-19, Amanda Tan said, the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) and a number of Health Offices were reported for allegedly neglecting the hospital's imposition of COVID-19 treatment costs.

"The complainants are families of patients or direct patients with CIVUD-19 who are treated at referral hospitals on average during early to mid 2021. However, they are forced to bear very expensive care and treatment costs, starting from Rp. 150 million, some even reaching Rp. 750 million," said Amanda in her statement, Friday, December 10.

In fact, said Amanda, these five citizens meet the requirements to be covered by the state's financing based on the Decree of the Minister of Health No. 4344 of 2021.

Based on Minister of Health Regulation Number 59 of 2016, Law Number 6 of 2018 concerning Health Quarantine and Law Number 4 of 1984 concerning Outbreak Management, all costs of care and treatment of COVID-19 patients must be borne by the state from the time they are declared a suspect until they recover.

Amanda explained that the hospital had a number of reasons for charging COVID-19 patients. These include health facilities that limit the coverage period to only 14 days, patients who are forced to go home even though they have not recovered and need treatment, requests for advances for treatment, and reasons for not cooperating with the hospital with BPJS.

In fact, there are hospitals that force these residents to make statements to cover the costs of treating COVID-19 patients independently.

"Regarding this problem, the Health Offices of several cities that received complaints from the victims, instead of giving a warning, actually confirmed the violation in their response," said Amanda.

Then, he said, problems were also found in the handling of the Ministry of Health which limited the coverage of the Covid-19 Gammaraas drug and the reimbursement ceiling for treatment costs by the Ministry of Health.

"These patterns violate the law and are acts of maladministration in COVID-19 health services as a crucial public service during a health emergency," he explained.