The patient flight to Singapore

JW Mariott and Ritz Carlton hotel was bombed yesterday morning. Soon, the news report in Indonesia reported the flight of foreign patients, bomb victims, to Singapore to seek hospitalization and cure. The news highlighted the advance of skin grafting and burn victim care in Singapore. Salute to Singapore.

On the other hand, it exposes once again the perception (and I would think, the reality) of poor health care in Indonesia. Coming from Indonesia, I know clearly doctors are among those that make tonnes of money. Lots of smart doctors but the infrastructure and the investment are just not supportive of getting some good surgeons. Unless you are very nationalistic or very dedicated to human lives in Indonesia, there seems to be nothing that prevent the doctor leaving for a better place. Yet, I would tend to think that not many countries would recognize medicine degree from Indonesia. Then, if that is such, there is a slim chance of medicine graduate in Indonesia to work somewhere else. Perhaps it is the insufficient medicine education in Indonesia to produce good skin doctors that pulls down the quality care.

Considering the chance of more attacks in time to come, more disasters, it is imperative that the government or private institution to look at bettering the healthcare of the country. I would believe that a hospital that manages to pull themselves out beyond the average hospital and claims the best doctor would at the end be able to sell the value and serve the crowd more. It is quite unimaginable why no hospital has clearly done so. What has transpired recently is more like a wanna be 'international' hospital suing a patient who complains. Then, plenty of report how those 'international' hospital is not really 'international'. I can't comprehend the wish to be 'international'. There is in no way any international hospital standard. The standard of care between Africa and western countries are definitely beyond imagination. The fundamental issue is more on the line of perception and obtaining the instrument capable of helping doctors providing the best of care. And of course the medicine education must be reviewed to get them up to date from time to time.