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BPJS Kesehatan goes digital to address complaints over long waiting times
Scenes of patients lining up since dawn, some even using their sandals or helmets to keep their place in the queue, are commonly seen at community health centers and hospitals partnering with the Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan), which manages the national health insurance scheme.
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Residents wait in line at the Health Care and Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) office in Matraman, Central Jakarta On Nov. 11, 2019. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
L
ong waiting times at hospitals have become somewhat commonplace for many participants of the national health insurance (JKN) scheme, including 22-year-old Detara Nabila Prastyphylia.
Deta had to spend almost a whole day every month waiting hours to visit her doctor and obtain her prescriptions at a hospital in Surabaya, East Java, from 2016 to 2018.
Deta would have to come as early as 6 a.m. to register herself at the hospital and even that did not guarantee that she would be first in the line. Many people had come earlier than her, even when the hospital had not opened its door yet. She would often be In the 800s in the queue, and at one time, she even had 1,200 people before her In the registration line.
On top of this, she had to spend many hours lining up to obtain a referral from a community health center (Puskesmas) the previous day. The JKN scheme requires that to proceed to a hospital, patients must get a referral, which lasts for 90 days, from a local health center.
