Malnutrition another problem facing the poor

Malnutrition another problem facing the poor

Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang

Nine-year-old Mahmud can only stare at the hospital room
ceiling with empty eyes. His head looks bigger than it should be,
his rib protrude and his stomach is extended. Both his hands and
legs are stunted.

Despite being treated at Tangerang General Hospital for almost
a week, he is still weak and underweight. He only weighs 13
kilograms, which is not in proportion to his 120 cm height.

Lasmida, one of the doctors treating Mahmud in the state
hospital, said the boy suffered from what is medically called
marasmus, which results from prolonged calorie and protein
deficiencies.

Mahmud is the seventh of 10 children of Ri'in, 60, and Sutri,
49, residents of Gempol village, Rawa Jambe subdistrict in Teluk
Naga district, Tangerang.

Ri'in's family has seen more than its share of tragedy. Three
of his children were stillborn. A fourth died when it was four
months old.

"Mahmud suddenly fell over when he was walking last Monday and
has been unable to walk ever since. At about 2 a.m. on Tuesday he
fainted. I did not dare take him to hospital because I didn't
have any money," Mahmud's father told The Jakarta Post over the
weekend.

Ri'in said he took his son to the hospital on Wednesday
morning after several of his colleagues at Babussalam school
foundation, where he works as a courier, urged him to.

"I usually take my children to the Puskesmas (public health
clinic), which is very cheap. But several colleagues at
Babussalam Foundation insisted on Mahmud being treated at the
hospital, so I brought him here," he said.

Five hours after receiving treatment at the hospital, Mahmud
regained consciousness, but was still in pain and unable to talk
as of Friday.

Ri'in said none of his children drank milk after they were
weaned by his wife, who also did not eat proper meals due to the
family's poverty.

"I honestly said that I don't have money to buy milk. I would
be very thankful if my children and my wife were able to eat
twice a day, having rice, tofu and tempeh regularly," he said.

"Sometimes, my kids have to eat cassava or sweet potatoes," he
said, adding that it was hard to feed a family of eight on his Rp
280,000 monthly salary.

He said that because the family lived in poverty, he had not
been able to enroll Mahmud in school until this year. He attends
kindergarten at the school at which Ri'in works. At nine, Mahmud
should be in third grade.

"I have tried many things to improve my finances, from
becoming a construction worker to trying various businesses. But
all ended in bankruptcy. God might have predestined us to suffer
from such a condition," he said.

Mahmud is only one of more than 1,000 children in Tangerang
municipality who have severe malnutrition because their parents
are too poor to feed them properly.

Data from the municipality's health agency shows that 1,139
under five-year-old children, mostly in its northern coastal
areas, such as Teluk Naga, Kosambi and Pakuhaji districts, have
malnutrition.

Health agency chief Bachtiar Oesman said over the weekend that
the children's parents had become very poor because they had been
laid off from their jobs or had failed harvests during the last
few years.

Reportedly, hundreds of thousands of workers in the
municipality had been laid off by factories that were facing hard
times due to the economic crisis that first hit the country in
1997.

Farmers, many of whom are found on the outskirts of the
municipality, had failed harvests due to natural disasters or
plant diseases.

Bachtiar promised that his agency would provide assistance to
needy people. "We don't want to see a lost generation happen
here," he said, adding that a number of people had been treated
for malnutrition at Tangerang General Hospital.