There's Such a Thing as Patient's Privacy

I've been to a lot of hospitals in Indonesia, the USA and The Netherlands. It is a common thing to go up to the receptionist and ask where mr X stays in the hospital. If we ask the nurse station at the wards where he stays we probably can catch a glimpse of the nurse's board with both patient's and the treating doctor's names on it, which room does he stay. some board includes the ailment(s), some also put the insurance's name.

But I've never seen one just like the one that Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital's building A has.

On its ground floor lobby, there's a plasma TV broadcasting not only the name of patients and which rooms they stay, but it also broadcasting the surgery schedules of patients with name of patient, start of surgery, and general info of the surgery (internal, obgyn, etc).

I was curious, so I asked someone who is knowledgable about Medical Record, in fact, she was the first Indonesian who studied that subject. She said surgery schedule is part of patient's medical record privacy, it is not supposed to be for public knowledge like what happens at Cipto.

Respect for patient's privacy is something that I feel Indonesian medical community lack of. I get the feeling everyone can go up to your doctor and discuss about your health matter. I've seen plenty of examples that it happened. Ok, I'm exaggerating by saying 'everyone', but if you compare it with Dutch's medical community with regards to patient's privacy, then the Indonesian counterpart has a lot to learn.

No wonder that patients are not always telling the truth to their doctors, eventho it could create a problem with the treatment. After all you need to be able to trust that that person is going to respect your privacy.