T

here are some things money can't buy. In Indonesia, this includes good quality healthcare, the complaint of poor and upwardly mobile citizens alike.

Alfonsus Budi Susanto, a business consultant and prolific book author, said he no longer trusts the country's healthcare service after undergoing a vertebroplasty treatment - an acrylic cement injection to the spinal column - at a reputable private hospital in Jakarta in 2008.

"It started out as sores on my back... It ended with four months of leg paralysis *after the injection*," he said.

Little wonder that many people, scared off by increasing media reports of malpractice, opt to self-medicate. A national social economic survey in 2008 showed 71 percent of the population chose to buy medicine at drugstores or use alternative medication. The number grew from 62 percent in 1998.

Having the funds for medical care is no safeguard against problems. Nanda Sukmawati, a resident of Lhokseumawe, Aceh, took her husband, Baharudin, to a leading private hospital in Medan, North Sumatra, to have hip replacement surgery.

The surgery costs were covered by Baharudin's employer, a private mining company. But the family has paid a much higher price after Baharudin developed leg paralysis.

"The doctor broke one of the screws that attach the implant on my husband's hip," Nanda said.

Amal Syaaf, an expert with the Indonesian Hospitals Association, contends the lack of resources, especially human resources, is the health system's main issue.

"It deteriorates service quality."