Orphans' winding road to care<\/p>\n
By K. Basrie and Christiani SA Tumelap<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Children are perhaps the third most precious
\ngift from God after our life and the earth on which we live.<\/p>\n
In spite of this many women still have the heart to dump their
\nnewborn babies.<\/p>\n
Volunteers at orphanages here say that their babies are
\ncollected from various sources: hospitals, police patrols,
\nclinics, cleaning services, poor couples and disappointed wealthy
\nfamilies.<\/p>\n
\"For us, all babies -- disabled or not -- are the same. They
\nhave the same right to live,\" explained R. Tjiptowinoto, who has
\nspent most of the past 16 years volunteering at the Sayap Ibu
\nFoundation orphanage in South Jakarta.<\/p>\n
Hospital staff, for example, often witness newborn babies
\ncrying alone in the wards after their mothers have left without
\nnotice.<\/p>\n
In each case the only documents left behind are the mother's
\nfake identification cards.<\/p>\n
Police officers also often drive their patrol cars to
\norphanages with pale babies in the back. Some are still covered
\nin fetal fluids. In many cases, the abandoned babies are
\ndiscovered at spots like river banks, lonely parks, garbage dumps
\nand ditches.<\/p>\n
Some well-to-dos even dare hand over babies in their families
\nto the orphanages if they have learned that the child was the
\nresult of an unacceptable union.<\/p>\n
That's why they label the babies as \"unwanted members\" in
\ntheir family and pass him or her on to an orphanage.<\/p>\n
Insane mothers<\/p>\n
According to Suparsih, head of the city-owned Tunas Bangsa
\norphanage in Cipayung, East Jakarta, babies of mentally ill
\nmothers usually experience the worst conditions.<\/p>\n
Most of the insane women, who tend to become pregnant after
\nbeing raped by unidentified people on the streets, intend to kill
\ntheir newborn babies, she said.<\/p>\n
\"One of our children here was badly tortured by his mentally
\nill mother, who smashed his head against a wall in panic, and
\nanother was strangled,\" Suparsih explained.<\/p>\n
There was also a baby boy who would have died if people had
\nnot stopped his mother from throwing him out of the window of the
\nsecond floor of the mental rehabilitation center where the woman
\nwas being treated, she said.<\/p>\n
She said all the mentally ill mothers were homeless but
\nalready pregnant when the city social service office officials
\npicked them up on the street.<\/p>\n
One of the saddest moments in the volunteers' life is when
\nthey are asked by the neglected children about their real
\nparents.<\/p>\n
\"For their own good, we prefer not to tell the truth if they
\nwere children of psychotic mothers or born of a maid who was made
\npregnant by her irresponsible employer,\" Suparsih said.<\/p>\n
The happiest, but often very tearful moment, for the social
\nworkers is when their children leave the orphanage to join a new
\nfamily who has decided to adopt them.<\/p>\n
Of the 42 kids at Tunas Bangsa, for instance, 11-month-old
\nSisca is one of the lucky one who will soon leave the orphanage
\nfor her new family.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month a couple chose the cute little girl with
\ncurly hair, beautiful eyes and chubby cheek as their adopted
\ndaughter.<\/p>\n
Sisca was only six months old when her parents deserted her at
\nthe state-owned Fatmawati hospital in South Jakarta while she was
\nstill under treatment after a surgery for a lung problem.<\/p>\n
The world, however, might be considered extremely cruel in the
\neyes of a child like Bambang. Almost six years old, getting
\nfoster parents seems like an impossible dream because he is so
\nmentally retarded none of the couples who have come to the
\norphanage since he was a baby want to take him as their son.<\/p>\n
Suparsih said Bambang might have inherited his mental problems
\nfrom his mother, a psychotic homeless woman who is being treated
\nat the city-owned mental rehabilitation center adjacent to the
\norphanage.<\/p>\n
Greedy physician<\/p>\n
The sad journey of the babies is sometimes unable to open the
\nfondness of some heartless human beings, including greedy
\nphysicians.<\/p>\n
An orthopedist here, for instance, charged the Sayap Ibu
\nFoundation the regular medical fee when the latter brought one of
\ntheir disabled babies for treatment.<\/p>\n
The baby girl, named Santi, who is now almost three months
\nold, has a problem with her legs, Tjiptowinoto said.<\/p>\n
\"The physician refused to lower the price as if we're the same
\nas his other patients. He just charged us Rp 400,000 (US$30) per
\nvisit,\" she said.<\/p>\n
The orthopedist promised that Santi would be able to properly
\nuse her legs again after the seventh visit.<\/p>\n
\"Although our budget is limited at the moment, we have no
\nchoice but to do the best we can to cure the girl's legs before
\nshe grows up as it would then be difficult to treat her disabled
\nlegs,\" Tjiptowinoto said.<\/p>\n
Such a strong humanitarian effort conducted by the Sayap Ibu's
\nsocial workers to help the neglected babies cannot be replaced by
\nanything whatsoever in this planet except the babies' smiles.<\/p>\n
Except the low-paid nurses, none of the 10 Sayap Ibu
\nadministration staff, including Tjiptowinoto, receive money for
\ntheir efforts.<\/p>\n
\"We never have and will never ever want to misuse money or
\nanything, like food and toys given for the kids, for our own
\ninterests even in this time of economic crisis.<\/p>\n
\"All we get is purely for the children here,\" Tjiptowinoto
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
\"We're 100 percent volunteers. We are not paid here and use
\nour own money for our meals, our transportation.<\/p>\n
\"But we all happily enjoy this work,\" she said.<\/p>\n
But why are there still so many women out there who have the
\nheart of the devil to dump their own babies?<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/orphans-winding-road-to-care-1447893297",
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