PB IDI Urges Govt to Disclose COVID-19 Patients' Identities

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The chairman of the Indonesian Doctors Association (PB IDI), Daeng Mohammad Faqih, has asked the government to disclose the identities of those testing positive for COVID-19 to facilitate contact tracing and estimate the spread of the deadly virus and formulate the necessary mitigation efforts.

Faqih said the government could at least announce their names and addresses. “Their names and addresses would be enough. We can use them to map the spread and keep it from spreading any further,” he said at a press conference at PB IDI office on Jl. Dr. GSSJ Ratulangi, Jakarta, Monday, March 16, 2020.

He said the disclosure would serve as a warning for healthy citizens to avert making contact with COVID-19 patients. “This is with regard to protecting, fencing off, and contact tracing efforts as to whom the patients were in contact with,” he said.

A member of the IDI Expert Council, M. Nasser, meanwhile, said disclosing the identities of COVID-19 patients could not be perceived as giving away patients’ secrets. He explained medical secrecy is stipulated under four lex specialis laws: Article 48 of Law Number 29 Year 2004 on Medical Practices, Article 38 of Law Number 36 Year 2015 on Health Personnel, Article 38 of Law Number 44 Year 2009 on Hospitals, and Article 73 of Law Number 36 Year 2014 on Health Personnel.

Nasser said that according the the laws one’s medical secrets could be divulged when it came to public health affairs. “Concealing the identities of corona-infected patients will only exacerbate public fears,” the chairman of the Indonesian Health Law Lecturers Association said.

AHMAD FAIZ IBNU SANI