Two days ago, Facebook user Yuhyi Lestari wrote an open letter to Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama about 13-year-old young boy named Azmi Abdul Malik. Azmi’s left eye had to be removed when he was younger after one of his classmates shot him with a wooden arrow 8 years ago. After that, he had to use a fake eyeball that needed to be replaced every few years to accommodate his growing body.
Azmi has already outgrown his last fake eye, and Yuhyi said it falls out frequently, causing him more embarrassment and shame. His parents attempted to use the national health insurance program (BPJS) to pay for the Rp 30 million surgery required to fit Azmi for a new fake eye, but the request was denied because administrators said BPJS could not be used for “aesthetic” surgery.
Yuhyi’s letter asked Ahok, which asked him to help Azmi and other children in his situation, quickly went viral on Facebook (it has already been shared over 2,490 times) and got the governor’s attention.
Today, Ahok said that Azmi’s family would not be able to use BPJS to pay for Azmi’s surgery since it was not directly related to the health of his eyes. So he said he would take care of it himself.
“His [fake] eye doesn’t fit, so it falls out often. My staff is already looking into it. I asked them to take care of the administrative side,” Ahok said today as quoted by Warta Kota.
According to Ahok, rather than waiting too long for Azmi to get treatment by changing the relevant regulations in the BPJS, it would be much better if he covered the costs of the operations himself now.
“If done through the BPJS administration, it would be difficult. I will pay for the cost of the operation at the hospital. [Azmi’s eyes] need to be corrected now, instead of waiting for regulations,” Ahok said. He also said that it would be difficult for BPJS to ever cover cases similar to Azmi’s, as it was created to cover the greatest number of cases that would help the largest number of people, so having it cover outlying situations would be too great a burden on the system.
