Pharmacists and Go-Jek Drivers Deliver Medicines to Homes

The general hospital in Banyuwangi has established a partnership with online-based ojek service to deliver medicines to poor people’s.

Kompas/Angger Putranto

A hospital pharmacist prepares to deliver medicines to patients’ homes by motorbike on Saturday (21/10) in Banyuwangi, East Java. Blambangan Regional General Hospital has implemented its Gancang Aron program as a solution to mitigate long patient queues at hospital pharmacies.

As a heated debate on application-based public transportation rages on in many cities, the general hospital in Banyuwangi, East Java, has established a partnership with online-based ojek (motorcycle taxi) service to deliver medicines to poor people’s homes.

The home delivery of medicines by online ojek is an expansion of Banyuwangi regency’s innovative Gancang Aron program. Gancang Aron in the Banyuwangi Osing dialect means “get well soon”.

The program seeks to improve locals’ access to health care. The program’s goal is to reduce queues in pharmacies in state hospitals.

In many hospitals, pharmacy queues are often as long as those in doctors’ waiting rooms. A long queue for medicines adds to a patient’s burden.

Through Gancang Aron, it is no longer necessary for patients to queue for a long time at pharmacies. After seeing a doctor, they can go straight home and rest. Afterward, the pharmacists will take care the medicines’ delivery to their homes.

Blambangan General Hospital director Taufik Hidayat said that people often needed to wait for a long time at the pharmacy as the medicines needed to be prepared first. It can take up to 45 minutes to prepare one type of medicine.

“It used to be that 20 patients queued for medicines in one hour. However, with various innovations and the Gancang Aron program in place, now one four or five patients queue per hour. The longer the queue gets, the more burdensome it is for patients. They are already sick and they need to wait here. It can make their sickness even worse,” he said.

Taufik said that on average, 300 people queued for medicine at the hospital every day. The pharmacy is open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Pharmacists are involved in the program as they are able to explain drug usage to patients. Pharmacists also educate patients on the restriction of using certain drugs for certain illnesses, among other things.

Blambangan General Hospital pharmacy head Ari Kurnianingsih said that Gancang Aron was a form of home pharmacy care. The hospital’s Gancang Aron program is claimed to be the first such program to be implemented by a state hospital in Indonesia.

In order to ensure the program’s success, the Blambangan General Hospital deploys 10 pharmacists in the program. The hospital provides these pharmacists with six official vehicles to deliver medicines to patients’ homes.

Due to limited resources, the pharmacists cannot deliver medicines to districts far from the hospital. Of Banyuwangi’s 25 districts, 18 are served in the program.

Patients living in faraway districts need not worry, considering that the service has just been improved after the hospital established a partnership with Go-Jek online motorcycle taxi service.

The partnership was marked by the signing of a memorandum of understanding by Banyuwangi Regent Abdullah Azwar Anas and Go-Jek senior vice president for public policy and government relations Malikulkusno Utomo in Banyuwangi on Tuesday (10/10/2017). Similar to Gancang Aron, the program aims to provide healthcare services through free home delivery for medicines from two government-run hospitals to poor patients’ homes.

Through the collaboration, online-based ojek drivers deliver medicines to the homes of poor patients undergoing outpatient treatment. Apart from facilitating poor patients, the service also specifically caters to patients undergoing routine hospital treatment.

The doctors who handle these patients will coordinate with medicine delivery service officers. If there are medicines to be delivered, the medicine delivery service officer will order an ojek through the mobile application.

With the patient’s personal data on hand, the officer can enter the medicine’s delivery address into the application. Fees are covered by the government through the hospital’s budget.

Apart from making deliveries, the online-based ojek drivers are also trained on how to deliver the drugs safely and to give relevant information on the drugs to patients.

Special shelter

Malikulkusno Utomo said the drug delivery service was as easy as using Go-Jek’s Go-Send package delivery service. In the future, there will be a special shelter at the Blambangan General Hospital to facilitate Go-Jek drivers in receiving delivery orders.

“Go-Jek is here to help resolve many social problems in Indonesia. We are very glad that the Banyuwangi administration wishes to use our services to expand its public services,” Malikulkusno said.

He said the collaboration was in line with Go-Jek’s pillar of “Speed, Innovation and Social Impact”. Go-Jek will continue to offer services in cooperation with experts from the Banyuwangi Health Agency and the Blambangan General Hospital.

Regent Abdullah Azwar Anas said he appreciated Go-Jek as an online ojek service provider for collaborating with the Banyuwangi administration. Anas said a vision of social entrepreneurship was important in developing businesses.

“We cannot fight technology, but we can use it to help poor patients. We established the partnership with an online ojek service as this is the era of collaboration. If regional governments worked alone, it would be inefficient as it would involve the procurement of vehicles,” Anas added.