Up to the present day, the government of Indonesia does not have accurate data on the number and characteristics of persons with difabilities in the country. Based on data from the Ministry of Social Affairs, in 2011, of approximately 240 million people in Indonesia, 3.11% or 7.4 million of them are categorized as difables. Meanwhile, according to the Ministry of Health, in the same year, the number of difables in the country amounted to about 14.4 million people, or 6% of the total population at that time.
The absence of accurate data is very influential in the process of fulfilling the basic rights of the difables. In the health sector, for example, many people with difabilities have difficulties in accessing free health services through participation in the National Health Insurance program (JKN) run by the Social Security Agency (BPJS) Health. This is because according to Government Regulation No. 101 of 2012 on Health Insurance Recipient, difables are not categorized as Health Insurance Recipients (PBI) in the JKN program. According to the regulation, the participants of the JKN program in the PBI category are limited to the poor, whose data have been recorded in 2011 by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), which amounted to about 30 million people (12.49%).
Apart from the data problem, lack of access for the difables to BPJS membership is also caused by a low level of ownership of population administration papers. According to a baseline survey done by PATTIRO in September 2015 in Lombok Barat regency, West Nusa Tenggara province, of 120 respondents with disabilities, only 53% have identity cards (KTP). In addition, only 36% of them have Family Cards (KK). Therefore, this is one of the reasons why only 5.6% of difables in the regency of Lombok Barat have registered as BPJS participants.
However, the condition is slowly beginning to change. Nowadays, more and more difables in Lombok Barat regency are listed as BPJS participants. At least, since April 2016, more than 165 difables and their families in the regency have officially became BPJS participants with a status of PBI.
That change did not happen overnight. There has been a lengthy process behind it. Difable activists from the Difables Potential Development Center (P3D) of Labuapi and Lingsar Difable Community Movement (KDLB) are the main actors in the change. For approximately five months, the two organizations assisted PATTIRO by holding meetings with officials in the health office and social office to address the problem of low access to free of charge health services for difables provided by BPJS Health. The activists were also keen to take action to improve understanding and awareness for difables and their families on their rights as citizens, as well as actions to help them obtain free health care.
Read the success stories of difable activists from P3D Labuapi and KDLB in improving difable access in Lombok Barat to become BPJS Health participants by downloading the PDF file below.
