Leeds, Kartunet - Have you ever imagined the convoluted bureaucratic path a visually impaired person in Indonesia must navigate just to be recognized by the state? From obtaining letters of recommendation from local community units (RT/RW) and sub-districts (kelurahan), to queuing at social services departments to be included in the Integrated Social Welfare Data (DTKS). This long and exhausting process often leads many people with disabilities—especially those who have recently lost their sight—to give up before accessing the services they are entitled to.
This situation is at the root of a major problem: the misdirection of social protection programs in Indonesia. According to data from the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K), there is an irony where approximately 94.5% of people with severe disabilities have not received social protection benefits. Why does this happen? The answer lies in a fragmented data collection system that disconnects medical diagnostic spaces from public service spaces.
Learning Data Integration from the CVI System in the UK
To untangle this bureaucratic mess, Indonesia needs to look at best practices from the UK, which implements the Certificate of Visual Impairment (CVI). CVI is not just an ordinary medical document; it is a masterpiece of data integration between the health sector and the government's social sector.
In the UK, when a patient is diagnosed with irreversible vision loss, an ophthalmologist at the hospital will issue a CVI. A copy of this certificate is not only given to the patient but is also automatically sent to the social services department at the local council (local government) where the patient resides. With this workflow, the proactive ball is in the government's court; it is the local sensory team that will contact the patient to offer mobility training, assistive devices, and social protection, rather than the other way around.
Furthermore, anonymized copies of CVI data (with personal identities removed) are sent to a national database. This continuously collected, high-quality data is used by researchers and policymakers—such as those at Moorfields Eye Hospital—to map trends in the causes of blindness, vulnerable age groups, and to evaluate the effectiveness of national eye care services.
Transforming Disability Data Collection in Indonesia
Currently, Indonesia is indeed moving towards improving the quality of its data collection. The Central Statistics Agency (BPS), through its SUPAS and SUSENAS surveys, no longer uses a rigid medical approach but has adopted the Washington Group on Disability Statistics (WGDS) instrument, which prioritizes functional and social barriers. Thanks to this new instrument, the aggregate number of recorded persons with disabilities has become much more realistic and closer to global estimates.
However, survey data alone is insufficient due to its periodic (not real-time) nature. Indonesia urgently needs a continuous, service-based registration system like the CVI. Article 31 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and Law No. 8 of 2016 have explicitly mandated the importance of disaggregated and inclusive data collection as the foundation for public policy formulation.
Benefits of Medical and Social Data Integration
If Indonesia can create a "Nusantara version of CVI"—a system that connects diagnostic data from hospitals or BPJS Kesehatan (Indonesia's national health insurance) directly to the database of the Ministry of Social Affairs and regional Social Services Departments—then many significant leaps will occur:
- Targeted Services: State budgets will no longer be wasted on misdirected programs, as beneficiary data will come directly from accurate and integrated medical validation.
- Bureaucracy Reduction: Newly blind patients will no longer need to carry folders of photocopied documents from one bureaucratic desk to another. A medical diagnosis at the hospital will automatically become a "referral ticket" for social rehabilitation.
- Reference for Regional Action Plans (RAD): Local governments will have precise demographic data on the number of persons with disabilities in their areas. This is crucial for Bappeda (Regional Development Planning Agency) in designing infrastructure (such as guiding blocks), employment Disability Service Units (ULD), and precise inclusive education quotas.
Conclusion
Bureaucratic confusion will only perpetuate the vulnerabilities experienced by persons with disabilities. Adopting an integrated certification framework like CVI is not impossible in today's digital era. Building a data collection system that integrates medical records with social services is an absolute necessity so that the slogan "no one left behind" (no one left behind) does not merely remain on development campaign papers but truly materializes in the lives of every person with disabilities in Indonesia. (DPM)
References:
- Ministry of PPN/Bappenas & AIPJ2 (2021). Monitoring the Fulfillment of Disability Rights.
- Thomas Pocklington Trust YouTube Channel, "Eye Care and You: What is a CVI and how can it support you?"
- Macular Society YouTube Channel, "What is a Certificate of Visual Impairment and how can it help me?"