Midwife tours villages at the foot of Mount Merapi

Midwife tours villages at the foot of Mount Merapi

Text and photos by Ali Budiman

YOGYAKARTA (JP): The sun regally shone that morning. Warm air
replaced the coldness enveloping the villages perched at the foot
of Mount Merapi. The road was deserted and the two young women
sped up their motorbikes. A few kilometers before entering
Muntilan town, from the direction of Yogyakarta, they took a
shortcut to the north, taking the road village most of which is
yet to be asphalted. After taking a winding road, they stopped
before the house of the head of Mancasan village, Salam
subdistrict, Magelang residency.

A bag containing injection equipment and medicines hang round
the shoulder of one of the women, Adri Nurhidayati. In her hands
was a pile of medical record books of the villagers she had
visited. Her assistant Rohmah Fauziah carried a plastic bag
containing a thermos flask in which there was immunization
liquid.

Dozens of young mothers carrying their under-fives and scores
of children were awaiting for Adri, a midwife known to them as
mantri desa, a village medical aide.

Suratno, the village head, had prepared a hanging scale with a
piece of sarong on which a child would lie down when the body
weight was taken.

Adri and Fauziah immediately got all the equipment ready on
the sitting room table. Dozens of sterile injection devices were
neatly standing in a special can while ampules and medicines as
well as vitamins were neatly arranged on their own tray. Then one
by one the children got their body weight measured. Their data
was taken and then they were given polio immunization drops or
injections to prevent TB, inflammation, cough and tetanus, and
immunization against measles, hepatitis. The mothers and their
children were given vitamins, additional food packages or milk
powder.

At the last visit, pregnant women had their pregnancy checked.
Adri was always patient and listened attentively to every
complaint. She also gave advice or medical treatment to the
villagers. Understandably, some adults make use of this posyandu
(integrated health service station) for the treatment of their
common illnesses.

Bamboo gong

The schedule of her visit is usually announced to the
villagers a week ahead. This is done either through the meeting
of village women activists or the meeting at the village meeting
hall. The announcement is also made through loudspeakers at
prayer houses or mosques. Uniquely, at Karang Talon hamlet, Adri
must strike a large bamboo gong on the terrace at the house of
the village head to announce her arrival. The sound of the gong
will make mothers and children rush to this place.

On that particular day they visited five villages: Mancasan,
Karang Talon, Ngresap, Gatakan and Perbutan and each visit lasted
1.5 hours. Always gracious, Adri and Rohmah enjoy the warm
welcome. Children, learning from their mothers, kiss their hands
when they arrive and later when they leave.

Gatakan village is not far from one end of the Yogyakarta-
Magelang road. A village road made of stones and sand runs
through the village and then ascends to the valley and slope of
Mount Merapi. Giant truck have been using the main road of the
hamlet, which previously was quiet and deserted, since last year.
The trucks collect the sand and the stone Mount Merapi has
belched out and take these materials to somewhere around Semarang
to be sold as building materials.

Every hour hundreds of trucks come and go and during the wet
season only the buzzing sound of the truck engine disturbs the
quietness of Gatakan villagers. Unfortunately, during the dry
season the thick dust spread by the truck wheels is inhaled by
the villagers, particularly those living close to the road side.
The dust also settles on everything inside the house.

Adri realizes the adverse effect of unusually thick layers of
dust as they can easily cause bronchitis, particularly to
children and pregnant women. She can only ask the village powers
that be to think of a way to solve this problem amicably, not by
demonstration or confrontation.

Education

Adri's father is a teacher at a junior high school and her
mother an elementary school teacher. Originally she had an
ambition to study agriculture as her parents own an ample lot of
ricefields. But she changed her mind after completing her senior
secondary education at SMU Godean in 1988. She went to the
Nursing School as she knew that there were numerous job
opportunities in this sector. Now Adri believes that her decision
to dedicate herself to fellow human beings is the right vocation
and it has motivated her strongly.

She spent three years in this school and in the second year
she learned midwifery. During this time she was allowed only to
take care of the placenta in a labor. She was yet to deal with
the head of the new-born babe. In the third year she was assigned
to a nursing midwife in an ICU.

She left the Nursing School with a diploma in 1992 and in 1993
she took a special training course as a midwife for 1 year in
Pekalongan. After completing this special training she began to
deal with childbirth independently.

After apprenticing at Maternity Office in Magelang for three
months, Adri got her civil service registry number and was
inaugurated as a midwife. Since then she has been stationed as a
village midwife at village polyclinic at Gulon, close to the
northern corner of Salam junior high school building in Magelang
residency.

Adri has collected many experiences in her seven years'
assignment at Gulon and also from her regular twice-a-week visits
to the villages in the valley of Merapi.

"What concerns me most is the poverty and ignorance, resulting
in the misery to mothers and children," she said.

Once a baby was born, weighing only 1.8 kgs. When the navel
cord was removed Adri, then making her house-to-house visit, left
a message to the parents not to give a bath to the baby. She told
them to monitor the condition of the baby until the next day.
However, the traditional midwife dealing with the childbirth
simply ignored this advice and the baby died in the afternoon.