JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network): The Health Ministry has issued a warning to three government-owned teaching hospitals after their medical residents filed reports of alleged hazing during their training.
The three hospitals are Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital (RSCM) in Jakarta, Hasan Sadikin Hospital in Bandung, West Java, and Haji Adam Malik Hospital in Medan, South Sumatra.
The reprimand came only a month after the Health Ministry banned bullying of doctors in medical specialist training in government-owned teaching hospitals and launched a hazing reporting platform for medical residents.
The ministry's inspector general Murti Utami said her office has since then received 91 reports of bullying, 44 of which came from residents of a number of teaching hospitals under the ministry.
"We have investigated 12 out of the 44 reports and decided to issue a warning for the three hospitals where the incidents took place, so they can take necessary steps [to stop the bullying],"
Murti said in a press briefing on Thursday (Aug 17). She did not reveal who the offenders were but said that the harassment of medical residents in the three hospitals ranges from demanding residents pay for items that were unrelated to their education to subjecting residents to gruelling work hours.
The ministry has ordered the managements of the three hospitals to sanction their employees or doctors who were involved in the bullying, Health Service Director General Azhar Jaya said. "We gave the three hospitals' stakeholders three days to resolve the issue, and we hope this is the last time we hear such a practice occurs at the ministry's teaching hospitals," Azhar said.
"Remember, bullying will not create professional, qualified or dignified doctors."
In response, RSCM and Hasan Sadikin Hospital said they would redouble their efforts to prevent the bullying of resident doctors, Kompas.id reported.
Of the 91 incidents reported with the ministry, 44 incidents allegedly happened in 11 ministry-owned teaching hospitals, 17 incidents in general hospitals owned by local administrations in six provinces, 16 in medical schools in eight provinces, six in university-owned teaching hospitals, one in a military hospital and one in a private hospital.
Azhar said the ministry would contact relevant stakeholders to further investigate the alleged bullying that did not occur in the ministry-owned teaching hospitals.
"We will ask the reported hospitals to further investigate the bullying allegations and take necessary steps to stop it. If they fail to address the issue, we'll consider revoking their status as teaching hospitals," he said.
Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin issued last month a ministerial regulation to formally ban all forms of hazing during medical residencies in government-owned teaching hospitals.
The regulation enumerates actions that constitute bullying during medical residencies, including hitting, punching, biting, name-calling, harassing, mocking, blackmailing, ignoring, treating residents as personal assistants and demanding that residents pay for items that are unrelated to their education.
If found guilty, offenders face sanctions ranging from a warning to expulsion from the teaching hospital, depending on the severity of the violation.
The policy is part of the ministry's efforts to address Indonesia's severe shortage of medical specialists. The country has 0.28 medical specialists per 1,000 people and needs 30,000 more specialists to meet the World Health Organization’s minimum standard.
Health officials say many doctors are reluctant to undergo medical specialty training because of the high tuition costs, difficult admission tests, long training times and the fact that doctors earn no salary during their residencies.
