Better sanitation and sanitary habits needed
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia has to strife for better sanitation and water management since only about 49 percent of the country's villages have toilets and only 65.7 percent of the 69,000 villages nationwide receive sanitized water.
Dirty water and poor sanitation can create health problems and spread diseases especially in areas hit by floods and landslides such as Aceh, West and North Sumatra, South Sulawesi and East Nusa Tenggara," Minister of Health and Social Welfare Achmad Sujudi said on Thursday after the opening of coordination meeting on water and pollution management.
Data from the ministry revealed that so far only 54.1 percent of the available water resources could meet with the required standards.
"We have to admit that some Indonesians are still very ignorant and continue being negligent with regard to sanitation.
They use rivers and gutters as toilets. Their lack of awareness of the importance sanitation worsens the problem," Director General for Communicable Diseases Umar Fahmi Achmadi said.
What makes it even worse is that the country does not have an integrated scheme for water and waste management, Umar said.
"All waste, from organic to nonorganic, go into one channel, such as a gutter. There are no distinction made between house hold waste, sewage and industrial waste," he said.
In a bid to promote sanitation and the use of clean water, the ministry has initiated the second phase of Water Sanitation for Low Income Community from 2000 to 2005 covering six provinces, among them South Sumatra, East Java, West Nusa Tenggara and West Sumatra.
"This project costs US$77 million, part of the funds were obtained from a grant and interest-free loan from the World Bank. Only a commitment fee of 0.57 percent was charged." Umar said.
Some Rp 800 billion ($83 million under the current currency rate) has already been spent in the first phase of the project from 1995 to 2000, but still the sanitation problems have not been resolved.
Besides the water sanitation program, the ministry also plans to continue its nationwide Sanitation Week program to develop the awareness and participation of the communities in adopting sanitary measures in fighting diseases such as diarrhea or respiratory problems.
"The communities should come up with their own resources and funds to run this program.
The ministry and the United Nations Children Fund can only give guidance, the rest is up to the communities," director of clean water and waste management Abdullah Muthalib.
"We are starting with simple messages, such as, 'wash your hands with soap before eating," Abdullah said.
Abdullah cited an alarming fact that a study conducted in certain rural and urban areas recently disclosed that none of the people wash their hands after using the toilet.
"Based on our research, only about 62.6 percent of the people washed their hands before eating and only 50 percent used proper toilets," he said.
"This of course is very disturbing since bad sanitary habits can lead to various illnesses such as diarrhea.
Diarrhea, he explained, have become the third biggest cause of death for children under five and is the fifth biggest cause of death in the all-age category," Abdullah added.
Two years ago, there were a total of 11,818 cases of diarrhea in 23 provinces, 275 of which ended in death.
In 1995, there were 280 cases of diarrhea per 1,000 people.
Sujudi added: "People, especially those living in rural areas pay little attention to sanitation.
That is why we still have a long way to go in building awareness in people. The people have to take the initiative in developing good sanitary habits. It's impossible for the government to be always telling its citizens how to do things right, even when after using the toilet," he said. (edt)