No free healthcare for smokers

JAKARTA: Governor Fauzi Bowo says the city will no longer provide free healthcare for the poor (Gakin) and relief letters (SKTM) to active smokers.

“If we give free [healthcare] to active smokers, we would not be able to justify it. Smokers are a root cause of diseases, not only to themselves but also to their families and people around them,” Fauzi said as quoted by kompas.com.

He explained that the cost of treating smoking-related diseases was five times more than the taxes cigarette producers paid to the country. “This is unfair,” he said.

He added that the number of smoking-related deaths in Indonesia was frighteningly high, at 428,000 deaths per year (around 1,200 deaths per day).

In 2010, Fauzi enacted a gubnatorial regulation on no-smoking zones.

According to the administration, compliance with the ruling has been measured at 62 percent and is estimated to reach 80 percent by 2012.