Revealed! There Are Companies That Ask Workers To Keep Their Mouths Shut When They Are Positive For COVID-19, KSPI: So That They Are Not Temporarily Closed

KSPI President Said Iqbal during a demonstration at the Horse Statue area, Central Jakarta, Monday 2 November (Photo: Wardhany Tsa Tsia/VOI)

JAKARTA - The Confederation of Indonesian Workers' Unions (KSPI) revealed that there were companies that secretly asked workers not to report positive for COVID-19 to the Task Force. The goal is that their company is not temporarily closed.

KSPI President Said Iqbal said the company only ordered its workers who tested positive for COVID-19 to self-isolate at home. When they got home, the workers then did not report their health condition because they had been given a message by the company.

"If the tracing carried out by the local government through the puskesmas will be recorded and given vitamins for those who are exposed. For workers, they have hidden warnings (messages) that you are self-isolating, don't report to the COVID-19 Task Force. These are facts and data, Said Iqbal in an online press conference, Thursday, July 15.

The company, he continued, deliberately gave the message so that there was no need to temporarily close in order to prevent workers from being laid off, having their salaries or wages cut, and possibly laying off workers.

This of course should not be allowed to happen. Considering that workers exposed to COVID-19 must continue to report in order to get health facilities such as free medicines and vitamins that have been prepared by the government.

Moreover, said Iqbal, BPJS Kesehatan does not cover the purchase of drugs and vitamins needed by workers when doing self-isolation.

"So they end up buying makeshift medicine if they have money and what happens eventually spreads to the family. That explains why many people have a high mortality rate. Check it out, (they, ed) on average, must be laborers," he said.

"If the elite above will not admit that he (the worker, ed) did not report to the COVID-19 Task Force, why, because if he reports the company will temporarily close and that is what the company does not want," added Iqbal.

Thus, reflecting on this incident, KSPI requested that a regulation be made either a Presidential Regulation (Perpres) or a Decree of the Minister of Health (Kepmenkes) so that BPJS Kesehatan could cover the purchase of medicines and vitamins for workers who are in self-isolation.

The reason is that they can't buy drugs and vitamins at high prices to get healthy. "So BPJS must be deployed by the president or the president orders the Minister of Health. So that not many more die when they (workers, ed) self-isolate," he concluded.