Diarrhea claims more lives

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The aftermath of the recent catastrophic floods in the capital has brought more pain to the victims, with four toddlers dying from diarrhea. Many other victims, including babies, young people and adults, are now threatened by disease following the subsidence of the floodwaters.

The four infants died in the intensive care unit of Tarakan Hospital in Central Jakarta. Two other babies had reportedly died earlier in North Jakarta. One more infant died in Koja hospital, North Jakarta, while another 15-day-old infant was in a critical condition in the same hospital.

"Their parents brought them here too late. They died from dehydration due to chronic diarrhea," Tarakan Hospital's pediatric care unit deputy head Zuraida told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Zuraida said that most parents failed to take diarrhea seriously.

"Most people bring their children to the hospital only if they have a fever, a symptom that is not present with diarrhea," she said, adding that a patient with diarrhea must receive treatment immediately.

Tarakan Hospital had received a total of 170 patients with diarrhea as of Friday. Ninety-five percent of the patients were infants, mostly from the Grogol and Teluk Gong areas of West Jakarta.

Due to limited capacity in the pediatric care unit, the management had to lay out hundreds of additional mattress on the hospital's three floors to accommodate all the patients.

Some toddlers are sleeping on mattresses in the corridors of the hospital, while their parents or relatives lie on mats on the floor.

The hospital is now very noisy all day long. Most of the babies with intravenous feeding tubes on their arms spend much of the day crying loudly.

"My daughter has been here for three days," said Kusriyati, who was sitting on the floor next to her daughter Ayu's mattress.

Her rented house in Grogol was flooded last week. Her family failed to save their belongings and had to take temporary shelter under a toll road.

Kusriyati fed her seven-month-old daughter on packaged food as there was no special baby foods available in the shelter.

"I know Ayu was suffering from diarrhea but I had no money to go to the hospital. I'm grateful a doctor at the health post gave a recommendation to enable me and my husband to rush Ayu to this hospital," she said, adding that her husband was a scavenger.

The Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital (RSCM) in Central Jakarta had only admitted four victims as of Friday.

Head of the City Health Agency, Abdul Chalik Masulili, had announced earlier that flood victims would receive free medical treatment at any hospital in the city provided they had references from one of the doctors on duty at 70 health posts in 263 shelters.

The agency also announced that around 18,000 of the 384,256 flood victims were suffering from diarrhea. So far, the agency has not announced that the city is on a diarrhea alert, and has yet to announce any efforts to prevent the diarrhea from becoming an epidemic.