Death awaits poor refugees

M. Azis Tunny, The Jakarta Post, Ambon

It has been almost two weeks since two-year-old Salfiah Lussy died at a shelter for displaced people in Ambon because her parents could not afford to take her to the hospital.

The little girl is thought to have died from pleurisy and complications from malaria. Salfiah's mother, Santi Lussy, 22, earlier took her daughter to Al-Fatah Hospital in Ambon, where she was hospitalized for more than a week.

But the cost of the hospital stay -- up to Rp 300,000 (US$33), excluding medicine -- forced Santi and her husband, Dahlan Lussy, 25, to take their daughter home.

"We had to take her home because the hospital was too expensive. We could not afford to keep her in the hospital," Santi told The Jakarta Post over the weekend at the shelter in Waihaong Park in Ambon.

Santi said her daughter may have contracted pleurisy from sleeping on the bare floor.

When sectarian violence broke out in Ambon on April 25, 2004, she and her family took refuge at the Al-Fatah Mosque. Salfiah, then one, slept on a mat on the floor with no blanket to protect her from the cool night air.

When she became ill, Salfiah was taken to the Waihaong community health center, about 100 meters from the shelter, where she was examined by a physician who did not provide her with any medicine. Instead, Santi was told to buy the prescribed medicine and vitamins at a pharmacy. The physician only said Salfiah was malnourished.

"He told me to buy vitamins and medicine at a cost of Rp 17,500 at the pharmacy because they were not available at the health center," said Santi.

After a year of living in the mosque, Santi and her family moved to Waihaong Park, which covers an area of about 900 square meters. The building in which they live is occupied by 42 families, or 180 people.

The entire park is inhabited by 575 families. Santi's family occupies a small room made of plywood, which contains only a mattress and a mat. The couple lives there with their oldest child, Julkifli, 3.

There are no cabinets for their clothing or any other piece of furniture. They keep their clothes in an old cardboard box. Two pieces of Koranic calligraphy and a clothesline are hung by nails on one of the walls.

Santi is extremely thin and looks much older than her 22 years, the result of the difficulty of her life.

Her husband is unemployed so the family has to rely on Santi's mother, Ona, 43, a widow who is also taking shelter in the park, for food.

The last year has been an uncertain time for the family. There is no more food aid and they are still waiting for promised building materials from the government so they can rebuild their house.

The overcrowded shelter has left people susceptible to disease. The rooms at the shelter are no bigger than three square meters but each room still houses two families in stuffy, damp and humid conditions.

Due to the lack of space, people do their cooking inside their rooms, which fill up with the cooking smoke.

Poor ventilation and waste disposal, as well as a clogged drainage system, have added to the unhealthy living conditions, helping in the spread of diseases like malaria, diarrhea, skin ailments, respiratory infections, coughing and influenza.

The people at the shelter depend on community health centers for medical treatment because they cannot afford to go to privately run hospitals.

However, the community health center nearest the shelter is only open for three hours, from 9 a.m. to noon.

"If someone is sick, we do not go to the hospital because we cannot afford it. We prefer to go to the health center, that is if it is still open," said Sia Arsyad, 42.

If someone requires hospitalization, they can go to the private Al-Fatah or Al-Muqadam hospitals, or to the military hospital, if they have some money. But for those who cannot afford to pay, they can only pray.

Residents at Waihaong are afraid to go to the government-run Dr. Haulussy General Hospital because it is located in Kudamati, a predominantly Christian area.

The coordinator of the Women's and Children Empowerment Association, Baihajar Tualeka, said his group had repeatedly urged the provincial administration to relocate the refugees to better-equipped shelters.

"If they continue to live in these refugee camps, the situation will only get worse because of the poor social, environmental and health conditions there. This problem is not only being seen at Waihaong, but in nearly every other refugee camps," Baihajar said.

He said the displaced persons in the camps also needed free medical care.