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After 100 years, traditional values remain key for St. Carolus Hospital
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For many residents of Central Jakarta, St. Carolus Hospital may be one of the main options for getting health services. The hospital has come a long way since the colonial era to become one of respected hospitals in the city. It has plans to expand its services while maintaining its traditional core values. (Shutterstock/Alexxndr)
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or many residents of Central Jakarta, St. Carolus Hospital may be one of the main options for getting health services. The hospital has come a long way since the colonial era to become one of respected hospitals in the city. It has plans to expand its services while maintaining its traditional core values.
St. Carolus Hospital celebrates a century of service this year. President director Endrotomo Sumargono said that one thing that distinguishes the hospital among all others is its patient-oriented services, nursing being one of its strengths.
He explained that the hospital invested heavily in its nursing department. Of the hospital's approximately 1,400 employees, 498 are nurses. The hospital also aims to increase the number until it makes up 50 percent of the total.
“I think 50 percent is the ideal composition to optimize the hospital’s services,” he told The Jakarta Post in an exclusive interview on Thursday, adding that to reach it the hospital also relied on the St. Carolus Institute of Health Sciences, from which many of the hospital’s nurses graduated.
The first Catholic hospital in the city was officially opened on Jan. 21, 1919, during the Dutch colonial period, when it was run by 10 nuns from the Netherlands and had only 40 beds.
The need for the hospital was seen by several Catholic figures in 1910. It prompted them to communicate with the Sisters of St. Carolus Borromaeus in Maastricht in the Netherlands. A year before it was opened, the order began sending nuns to Jakarta, then called Batavia.
The juxtaposition of the hospital's core values and the wide range of health services it offers today are mirrored in how St. Carolus' original classic colonial edifice now stands side by side with a new building that was inaugurated last year.
