The prices of medicines has soared five or six-fold. The high costs of imports, pushed up by the devaluation of Indonesia's currency, is hurting the health sector because Indonesia imports more than 80 percent of drugs and drug ingredients. Dr Rahman Maas, director of the Bandung Hasan Sadikin Public Hospital, says his hospital can hardly get thrombocytes and plasma expander, which are essential for dengue fever treatment. The lack of hospital rooms has prompted Jakarta administration officials to build temporary field clinics, as the number of dengue sufferers continues to rise. Many hospitals are now temporarily treating dengue patients in corridors.
Inadequate blood is another hindrance.
Red Cross offices are unable to keep up with up the demand for blood, and the government has desperately called on the public to donate blood to be used for transfusions into dengue patients. City Red Cross chief Uga Wiranto said blood supply was very low and that her understaffed office has to toil round the clock to meet the demand. Doctors who hastily recommend blood transfusions for dengue patients are inexperienced,'' said Zubairi Djoeban, head of the Indonesian Hematology and Blood Transfusion Association. He called the widespread practice of transfusions ''misguided''. If there are no red spots on the patients skin then there is nothing to worry about, even if the number of thrombocytes per microliter of blood is less than 50,000,'' he said, referring to the levels that show the seriousness of the illness.