Member of Commission IX DPR RI Sukamto approved and supported the Indonesian government’s decision to change the status of the Covid-19 pandemic to endemic. According to him, the average percentage that reaches 90 percent in the recovery of people who are entangled in Omicron is a consideration for the government to reduce it from a pandemic to an endemic.
“And secondly, not all regions (healing rates) are like that right now. There are areas that have (PPKM) level 2, level 3, and level 4. So, if all of this becomes (PPKM) level 4, it will be a pity for the people. We are trying to coexist with Covid,” said Sukamto when contacted by Parliament via telephone on Thursday (March 3, 2022)
The politician from the National Awakening Party (PKB) continued, he also agreed with the government’s program if he wanted to determine the status of this pandemic as endemic. Remembering, he also saw that on average the recent Omicron cases were more benign than the previous Covid-19, namely the Delta variant.
However, he asked the government not to just give up. This is because the endemic status carried out by Indonesia does not yet have regulations that regulate it. He also asked the government to increase the role of puskesmas to be like small hospitals scattered around the community.
“(I hope) people can be hospitalized at the puskesmas. For example, in Yogyakarta, the puskesmas is not too far away. But let’s look at it as far as Kalimantan, wide. So the government needs to provide a lot of subsidies so that this is still handled by the puskesmas. Don’t let the puskesmas get out of hand, I don’t agree, “explained Sukamto.
Unfortunately, Sukamto still finds queues for public health services at the puskesmas for hours, but only get very little service. Therefore, he requested that the facilities and quality of the health units at the puskesmas could be improved. “Many (inputs) came to me, queued at the puskesmas for 2-3 hours, finally I was given 10 pills and a small cough medicine, that’s only how many thousand? This is something that must be further improved, so that this puskesmas can still cover the endemic situation,” he explained.
As a member of Commission IX of the DPR RI, Sukamto will convey this issue to the Minister of Health when he enters the next session, which is after March 15. He will propose to the Ministry of Health to take firm action against hospitals that do not want to cooperate with BPJS Health, so that people are not burdened with high medical costs.
According to Sukamto, if many hospitals do not want to cooperate with BPJS, this can trigger a widening number of poverty. “Don’t let, in other words, people who want to enter BPJS are limited to only state hospitals, in the end many people enter private hospitals and pay for themselves (at a large cost),” said the legislature for the electoral district (dapil) in Yogyakarta.
