Another day, another mishap for presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto.
In a speech titled “Ceramah Kebangsaan Akhir Tahun” (“End of Year National Lecture”), which he gave on December 30, the Gerindra chairman highlighted financial difficulties currently faced by the Healthcare and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan). Prabowo said the situation was bad and is affecting hospitals’ quality of service, giving the specific example of a hospital having to reuse a single dialysis hose for numerous patients.
“I got a report from RSCM (Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital) about their dialysis machine, the dialysis hose made of plastic or rubber should be used once by one patient only. I heard they use the same hose for 40 patients,” Prabowo said in the speech, a statement that was met with gasps from the audience.
“People with kidney failure survive by hemodialysis. Patients are potentially at risk of [getting diseases if one dialysis hose is used by many]. Hepatitis A, B, C, malaria, HIV. Imagine. In my opinion, our country failed at serving its people,” he continued.
Other than that, Prabowo also claimed financial problems at BPJS Kesehatan were the cause of salary for medical personnel being in arrears for several months.
Similar claims were previously made by the director of communications and media for the Prabowo-Sandiaga campaign (and Prabowo’s brother), Hashim Djojohadikusumo, on December 20 on CNN Indonesia. Hashim said six doctors confided in him about the situation but didn’t specify as to their identities.
Beside the hemodialysis machine and hose, Hashim claimed that hospitals use low quality medical devices, even ones that aren’t original. He also said that BPJS Kesehatan payments to hospitals were in arrears up to six months and doctors salary were in arrears up to three months.
“Our patients are infected by hepatitis. It’s malpractice, fraud, we’re forced by the government. But it goes against our conscience,” Hashim recalled the doctors saying, as quoted by CNN Indonesia.
RSCM’s director of medicine and treatment, Dr. Sumaryono, and the hospital’s president pirector, Lies Dina Liastuti, disputed Prabowo and Hashim’s claims through a press conference held on Wednesday.
“We make the quality of treatment and our patients’ safety our priority. Hemodialysis at RSCM only uses single-use hose and dialyser,” Sumaryono said as quoted by Detik.
Sumaryono said hemodialysis requires three main components: a hemodialysis machine, hose (blood tubing), and a dialyser that serves as an artificial kidney. Hemodialysis machines function as the regulator of the dialysis process and don’t have direct contact with a patients’ blood.
“Meanwhile, the dialysis hose is used to drain blood from the patient’s body to the dialyser and return the blood that has been dialyzed back to the patient’s body. The dialysis hose is only used for one patient, and that’s also what we do at RSCM,” Sumaryono said.
As an artificial kidney, dialyser can be used once (single use) or more than once by the same patients following a sterilization process and testing.
Lies also denied Prabowo’s claim about financial problems caused by BPJS Kesehatan. While she admitted there were delays on payment from BPJS Kesehatan by up to two months, it didn’t affect their service and treatment because they’re implementing successful cross subsidies from services outside BPJS Kesehatan.
“State hospitals have their own budget draft. Monthly budgets have already been arranged. RSCM never fails to pay its employees’ salaries,” Lies said, as quoted by CNN Indonesia.
The Gerindra has responded to RSCM’s statements by explaining Prabowo’s claim. A party spokesperson, Andre Rosiade, said what Prabowo meant was probably the dialyser, not the dialysis hose.
“From my understanding, what Pak Prabowo meant in his speech wasn’t the dialysis hose, but the dialyser that should’ve been used only once. But BPJS could only cover a small portion of the dialyser fee so they had to use it more than once,” Andre said on Kompas Petang Wednesday, as quoted by Tribun.
When asked if Prabowo’s claim turned out to be wrong, Andre said the main issue was actually about how the government wasn’t being smart about finding funding to pay BPJS Kesehatan, which owes hospitals a huge amount in back payments.
“Humans can do wrong. What I said was my own analysis, that what he actually meant was dialyser. But I could be wrong,” Andre said.
“Pak Prabowo is a very objective person. If he turns out to be wrong, he’d definitely openly apologize,” Andre continued.
Prabowo’s team has made attacks on the fiscal policies of President Joko Widodo’s administration a central aspect of their campaign, but has found varying levels of success with their messages.
The challenger and his campaigners have faced a number of controversies and PR blunders in the last few months, such as the hoax perpetrated by his former campaigner, Ratna Sarumpaet, Prabowo’s joke about “Boyolali looks” that went terribly wrong and his lack of objection to Australia moving their embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
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