Omni International Hospital at Alam Sutra, Tangerang, has dug its own grave by playing the game of elephant and ant. The elephant can topple a big tree but cannot step on the ant. Just see how the public fiercely defends Prita Mulyasari against the hospital. From the very beginning, the public saw her unjust treatment following her detention by Tangerang Prosecutor Office for a few weeks in May 2009.
Thanks to the media that reported the case attractively: That a woman, a mother of two children – one of whom was still a baby – had been detained she had allegedly defamed an international hospital, that because of the detainment, the mother was separated with her newborn baby who still needed breast-feeding. What a pathetic story.
Perhaps Omni management has forgotten that our people are very sensitive to what we consider “persecution” towards the weak by the strong. We can easily mention such cases where the “weak” always drags attention and sympathy from public. In this particular phenomenon, the public will judge the “weak” always right and the “strong” always pointed as the despot, no matter the actual circumstances and motive.
In Prita’s case, public outcry against Omni is understandable. Moreover, people who have experienced poor services by some hospitals as well as doctors would sing the same song and firmly support Prita. Just ask your neighbors or friends, some will share horrific experiences about illness, hospital, and doctors. This is reality and nobody denies it.
To be fair, though, there are still good doctors who treat patients humanely, sympathetically and responsibly. I have plenty of stories about qualified doctors who respect the code of ethics while doing their jobs.
In Prita’s case, the thing that actually triggered public anger was when Omni sued Prita just because she shared her experience through email to her friends. It’s very simple; therefore, many people denounced Omni’s actions. The public saw it was excessive and tyrannous against the ordinary people. Is sharing experience through email a criminal act? If Omni kept silent, the story would be different, because not all people consider news spread out through email to be a serious matter.
But the story has been going too far today, and in this particular situation, people would not think whether Prita, in her email, was telling the truth or conversely defaming Omni. People would not consider rude sentences used by Prita when she wrote that Omni management was a big liar and made a fool of people’s lives. People did not want to understand Electronic Information and Transaction (ITE) law that was used by prosecutors to charge Prita. And people do not even want to know what’s happening in the legal process because law enforcement is nothing but claptrap to provide justice.
When eventually Banten High Court ordered Prita to pay Rp. 204 million for defaming Omni, people across the country, from trash pickers to students, from housewives to public figures, collected coins to redeem her. As of today, the coins that have been collected reached more than Rp 500 million. When Omni is willing to drop its civil lawsuit against Prita, it will be too late because Prita has already stolen the show. Prita has snatched public sympathy although legally she may be defeated.
Do the abundant coins for Prita reflect justice, or is it just channeling public protest because we don’t know where to seek justice in this country?
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Serpong, 12 Dec 2009
Titus J.
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