Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin urged all government hospital managers to maximize the use of Public Service Agency (BLU) funds for the development of service innovations for the community.
"Most of the BLU funding was given to hospitals, health polytechnic education and research activities used for tool tests," he noted during the 2023 BLU Coordination Meeting in Jakarta, Thursday.
The Finance Ministry has disbursed large amount of funds, totaling around Rp15 trillion, in a year to meet the needs of government hospitals, he stated.
"(Government) hospital should not seek for profits but (rather focus on) their ability to provide the best service for the community," he emphasized.
Sadikin stated that patient occupancy was one of the methods to measure health services in a government hospital. If more people prefer to seek treatment abroad, then it means that the service provided by the government hospital has not met the people’s expectations.
“This measurement is difficult. It can involve one thousand kinds of matrices. However, my measurement is easy. We can check by the name of our ministers, who seek treatment in Indonesia, Singapore, or the United States, and even our president as well. If the answer is not in Indonesia, then it means our service is still not good," he remarked.
In order to improve service quality, it is necessary to increase innovation in the field of medical services through collaboration with universities, he stated.
"If the collaboration does not bear result, how can we see progress in our hospital?" he questioned.
He noted that several government hospitals in Indonesia were lacking services in handling bone marrow transplants for blood cancers, such as leukemia, multiple myeloma, or lymphoma.
"Indonesia has not had this research. The number of hospitals in Malaysia with this ability can increase, from 100 to 300 in five years, followed by Vietnam, with 80 hospitals; Bangladesh, with 20; Myanmar, with eight; and only five in Indonesia," he stated.
The minister also criticized the approach of government hospitals that were only busy in handling financial transactions and building infrastructure without consideration for the development of disease management services for the community.
"Their BLU score is bad," he stated.
In addition, Sadikin emphasized the need for government hospital managers to increase their ability to handle cases that require the presence of specialist doctors.
"This is an effort to reduce the death rate at the national referral hospital," he stated.
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Editor : Mahdani
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