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f you'€™re keeping up with current health news, you'€™ll notice that dengue fever has returned with a vengeance this year, with Jakarta alone recording 1,042 cases, including its governor and little old me.

While a bite from an Aedes aegepty mosquito forced Governor Ahok to take a short rest at home, yours truly had to spend eight long days in hospital last month '€” through Valentine'€™s Day and Lunar New Year, if I may add.

But this is not about nasty dengue fever. This is about how the health business, as I closely observed last month and during Mom'€™s bout of lung infection in December, has made great strides to provide comfort for patients in addition to curing their illnesses, at least compared with the last time I was hospitalized, which was when Soeharto was still in power.

Back then the only extra comfort that I enjoyed, and bear in mind I was staying in one of Jakarta'€™s best hospitals, was to choose between the Oriental and Western menus. Nurses would dutifully change bed linen and give a sponge bath in bed every morning, but that was about it. I remember that Mom even brought me toiletries from home.

These days dental and shower kits are packaged inside a nice pouch, along with a foldable mini hairbrush and packets of wet and dry tissues. Add a vial of eau de cologne and it might just pass as an in-flight amenity bag for business and first class passengers.

Meal menus are also much more robust. Nutritionists pre-select according to instructions from your attending physician, but I actually was looking forward to meal times, irrespective of the fact that anything that passed my feverish lips would taste like cardboard. One time, I even got mad at my own nausea, one of the common side effects of dengue fever, because it got in the way of polishing off a plateful of pasta served that day.

Yet the cherry on top was the hair-wash service. I'€™d read about it somewhere but didn'€™t get to witness it myself until Mom'€™s hospital stay in December. During my own stay last month at a different hospital I asked if a similar service was available and to my delight it was.

In both hospitals the service was performed by outsourced professional salon personnel, armed with a portable version of the washbasin normally installed at hair salons. They'€™d expertly maneuver hospital beds and pillows so patients wouldn'€™t need to get out of their pajamas, much less bed, during the entire 20-something minutes of hair washing and blow-drying.

The price is slightly higher than regular salons and billable to your room charges, not unlike in-room spa treatments in hotels.

You may chuckle at this as some sort of misplaced vanity or a bad case of OCD, but not until you'€™re strapped to a hospital bed for days on end with needles poking into you, along with various illness-related pains and distress, will you truly appreciate how physically comforting it can be to have a little water and shampoo cleansing your hair.

Suddenly your head feels lighter, your shoulders much less knotted, your body somehow normal again. Even when your blood trombosit count is freefalling to 21,000 from the normal 150,000, the food tastes like cardboard and all your joints are turned into jellies.

After recuperating and regaining some of my wits, I tried to surmise what had driven hospitals further into the hospitality, almost pampering, side of the business. And there lies the answer: business.

Rising income levels have engendered an increasing need for good service and a certain degree of personal comfort, and I think more Indonesian hospitals have finally realized they need to step up their game if they want to remain in it. The competition doesn'€™t stop domestically, but increasingly with counterparts in neighboring Singapore, Penang and Hong Kong.

But are hotel-style in-room services sufficient to persuade moneyed Indonesians to seek medical assistance domestically? Certainly not.

At the end of the day, when you'€™re sick, you want to be cured as soon as possible with as little pain as possible. Doctors'€™ professionalism and hospitals'€™ medical facilities remain the pivotal factors in patients'€™ decision to obtain medical assistance, especially for long-haul treatments. Indonesian doctors are getting better, but they need to get better a bit faster.

While we get there, hair-wash services for patients and sofa beds for patients'€™ family members staying overnight remain a considerable plus for those unfortunate enough to be checked in for medical care, as this recently admitted patient can testify.