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In the Dark About Insurance, Mothers Give Up Newborns to Pay Hospital Bills
Nurfika Osman | July 09, 2010

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peterR
10:36am Jul 11, 2010

Good,Bad and Ugly - Nor will you. The priorities of the authorities, the religious organizations and especially the police, are in more newsworthy stories. They are all shouting about how porn is destroying children and arresting people because of it, but they say and do little about child trafficking. Its sickening.

Salimharko
6:36am Jul 11, 2010

The responsibility should be on the hospital to inform the poor patients about the Insurance, explain its benefits and help the patient claim the benefits without any difficulty. This condition must be made mandatory on all hospitals. I suspect there is some more to all this. Probably a baby selling syndicate is involved. What a shame. How low can some people go to make money, even out of poor people and their new born child. These people must be people with no human values.

ChrisH
10:30pm Jul 10, 2010

Too many "should've" and "should be" in this story.

This country should be on top of the world with the money and resources available here.

But then, some families should be willing to share more, and maybe they should not want to only own 20 more cars and houses.

Good,Bad and Ugly
6:15pm Jul 10, 2010

One important point is missed here. The trafficking of human beings by the hospital authorities. I haven't read about their arrests yet.


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Two mothers who were left no option but to sell their newborns to pay hospital bills could have avoided their plight had they been informed they qualified for insurance and financing, health officials said on Thursday.

Suparti, 41, a poor woman from Gunung Kidul district near Yogyakarta, said she was forced to sell one of the twin girls to whom she had given birth to pay medical expenses for the deliveries at a state-owned hospital.

Her husband, Sarimin, 50, who makes a living doing odd jobs, failed to get a loan to pay the Rp 6 million ($660) bill. She said a hospital staff member offered to pay the bill if she allowed one of the twins to be adopted by another hospital employee.

“I had to sell one of my twin girls, whom I gave birth to only 10 days ago, because I couldn’t pay the bill at Wonosari General Hospital,” Suparti told state news agency Antara on Wednesday. “On Tuesday, I was allowed to go home. One of my babies was taken by Mbak Rina [the staff member]. I was not allowed to see [my child].”

Munawaroh, a poor woman who gave birth in Bali to a daughter with lung problems, was also faced with a Rp 6 million bill. Her husband, a laborer at a furniture store, had disappeared and her hospital bill grew by Rp 1.5 million per day.

“I am willing to give up my baby if someone wants to buy it, as long as I can get out of the hospital,” she told the Jakarta Globe.

Usman Sumantri, the head of the Health Ministry’s financing and insurance unit, told the Globe that parents who were not covered by Jamkesmas, the national health insurance scheme for the poor, should have been covered by Jamkesda, the local insurance plan.

“There should have been another health care scheme to help the parents,” Usman said. “Selling the babies is not the way to solve the problem.”

Bondan Agus Suryanto, head of the Yogyakarta Health Office, said patients had options available to help pay hospital bills.

“We are also going to warn the hospital that when there are patients who do not have insurance, it should give them information on other options.”

A hospital employee declined comment, saying the press officer had left for the day.

Syahrul Aminullah, chairman of the Indonesian Public Health Association (Iakmi), said hospitals could be sued if they did not provide care to the poor.

Local governments are also responsible for providing health insurance to poor residents, Syahrul said.


Additional reporting from Made Arya Kencana and Antara