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Dewa Ayu Sasiary, a 10-year imprisonment convict due to the malpractice allegation, gave testimony of judicial review on Act 29/2004 about Medical Practice.  

The doctor explained an occurrence happened to her four years ago that led to where she is now. “I was in charge in hospital, then I received referral patient. Later on, I decided to execute normal birth on her. Everything went well until the baby clogged, the birthing process was prolonged and resulting in baby emergency. As the team leader I decided on proceeding action,” she said, Wednesday (10/1).

Ayu reported to the responsible lecture and surgery was executed. The surgical ran well, but the patient lost her life. A month later, Dewa received letter from Police for allegedly lethal malpractice.

Visum et repertum said that the patient died due to the emboli, not the surgical process. But the investigators turned their head from the visum report. “They tried to investigate my wrongdoings, from permission letter to mu competence,” she added

She never thought about prison. Ayu felt that he was played over as if she conducted a crime. The cause of the death related nothing with the permission documents. “I was freed, but the prosecutors appealed to the Supreme Court, of which decided on my 10-year imprisonment,” she said

Prolonged Trauma

Similar thing occurred to Reza Kamal. On October 2009, a patient came to him due to periods disorder, to which he diagnosed left-room pregnancy, or ectopic pregnancy. “I gave her two options, surgery or MTX injection, I preferred to execute the latter due to the cost efficiency and non-surgical intervention,” he said

The patient agreed, but she was referred to another hospital due to the MTX unavailability. The referral hospital also agreed to inject MTX. “Considering the size of the room, they cannot wait for any longer, the injection must be executed immediately,” he explained.

Two days later, another doctor diagnosed normal pregnancy, but the MTX already injected and the fetus was dead. “The patient filed a lawsuit and the case was published in five medias, after long process in crime and civil court, the cases was closed after the patient revoked the lawsuit,” he described.

As the impact, Reza’s patient drastically decreased, the trauma still burdens until now, five years after he resigned from the former hospital.

Previously, Article 66 verse (3) Act 29/2004 about Medical Practice was considered prompt uncertainty for the doctors to undergo their duties and may spur defensive medicine, a circumstance of medical practice that puts the doctors to play safe to shun from patient’s blaming. The obligatory drives the doctor to do the best in helping patient, regardless of the critical measurement whether the patient is having a hope or not. Recent condition is considered dilemmatic for the doctors. Doctors are most likely the object of anger to any patient’s disappointment.  By the ruling of the Act, some doctors might execute defensive medicine which actually disadvantages people, by such execution doctors may only serve patient who is having bigger life chance than the lower one. Doctors also may operate unnecessary full medical check-up to the patient, which most likely ends up in big payment. Lastly, doctors may refuse to check a patient due the lacking medical facility. Meanwhile, referring a patient to another hospital may lead to late medical action.   

The Plaintiff asked MK to give a legal settlement about special procedure to asses medical practice, within tiered assessment, starts from ethical and disciplinary assessment conducted by MKDKI. (Lulu Hanifah/mh/kun)

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