Misery, not gold on Jakarta's streets

Misery, not gold on Jakarta's streets

The bright lights of Jakarta are a magnet for migrants who continue to try their luck in the metropolis. Behind the glow, however, there are serious urban health problems that do not emerge in rural areas, observes The Jakarta Post's Rita A. Widiadana. More stories on Page 2 and Page 3.

JAKARTA (JP): Life can be easy and comfortable for people who live in the luxurious, air-conditioned houses in Pondok Indah, Kebayoran Baru, Menteng and other elite areas in the capital city of Jakarta.

In the morning, as they get ready to leave for work, drivers are waiting to take them to the office. Reservations for lunch and dinner are already booked at classy restaurants.

Unfortunately, only a group of well-off minorities can afford such cozy lifestyles. Millions of Jakarta residents have to contend with living in stuffy houses or cardboard box structures in polluted slums or are left to roam the city's streets.

Others make do with living in suburban areas, about two to three hours from the city center. Many of them are jobless and find it hard to get daily meals.

For the less fortunate Jakartans, life is indeed very tough.

Suranti, a low-ranking civil servant at the Ministry of National Education, shared her daily experiences.

Living in a newly-built housing complex in Bekasi, 75 kilometers east of the heart of Jakarta, this mother of a small baby says, "Every day, I spend about two and a half hours on a crowded bus to go to my office on Jl. Sudirman, Central Jakarta. It is very tiring but I don't have any choice."

Surono, not his real name, a toll gate worker, has another problem. "I inhale toxic gases and other hazardous chemical substances coming from cars. I frequently have serious headaches and problems with my throat and stomach," the Yogyakarta native complained.

"But at least I have a permanent job here in Jakarta," he said proudly.

The scintillating city of Jakarta, with job opportunities and promises of better futures, lures millions throughout Indonesia, especially after the Idul Fitri Muslim holiday.

A population and urban poor expert from the University of Indonesia's Demographic Institution, Dr. Sri Oemijati Djajanegara, warns that the rapid growth of the city's population will greatly affect the standard of living of people in Jakarta and other big cities in Indonesia.

The city's population growth is clearly out of control and large segments of the population suffer from poverty and neglect.

Today Jakarta is jam-packed with nine million people by night and about 15 million by day. The populace swells each year. The city's air is famously filthy and cars often go slower than pedestrians because of constant traffic jams. Not to mention the city's slew of buses, taxis and other dilapidated vehicles.

"There will be limited facilities, including housing, public transportation, clean water, education and health," said Sri.

Professor of Public Health at the University of Atmajaya Dr. Charles Suryadi agrees that the majority of Jakartans suffer from minor to serious physical as well as mental health problems because of the lack of various public facilities.

"How can they be healthy if they don't eat well, work too hard and live in dirty places?" he contended.

He said many urban people also suffered from mental health, including stress and depression, which in turn affected their physical wellbeing.

As a metropolitan city, Jakarta could no longer accommodate its residents with adequate basic facilities or provide a secure environment so that residents did not live in fear, he added.

He said Indonesia had about 234 cities, all of which did not meet the standard's of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The organization's survey indicates that less than 40 percent of urban households have access to piped water; less than 70 percent have private toilets; and about 21 percent of use shared toilets as well as public toilets. There is no sewerage system in the cities of Indonesia. Therefore, people in urban areas have to build septic tanks.

Reports on the monitoring of the quality of piped drinking water in Indonesian cities shows that 58 percent of piped water is contaminated.

"Most Jakartans, including the well-off, drink water from ground wells which are probably contaminated by human waste from septic tanks. You can imagine," Charles said.

In addition to housing and sanitation, there is also the problem of food hygiene, especially in cities, because the majority of urbanites habitually eat snacks or eat outside their homes at food vendors and small restaurants.

"Both the rich and the poor have food and cholesterol problems. They are growing fat," Charles said.

The rich people eat nutritious and fatty foods, while the poor consume a diet of cheap, salty and fatty snacks.

"The poor people have high cholesterol problems because they eat a lot of fried snacks, such as salty kerupuk and chips, as well as sweet and fattening cakes."

To worsen the problem, the healthcare service in Jakarta is still far from perfect. Most hospitals, the privately owned in particular, prefer to cater for wealthy patients.

The poor have to satisfy themselves with healthcare from Puskesmas community health centers, many of which have closed down due to the economic crisis.

"Urban health problems are very complicated. They are linked to medical problems, the city's planning and environment and social and political conditions," he commented.

An urban planning expert at the World Bank, Suhadi, said urban health problems were part and parcel of city life.

"In dealing with it, the city must be healthy, meaning that it should have adequate public infrastructures, create a safe atmosphere and opportunities for each of the city's dwellers, " he said.

The city administration has done a lot of work to improve the quality of the city's living conditions, including the Muhammad Husni Thamrin (MHT) urban improvement project which helps improve the conditions in slum areas.

An ideal city would be one where the administration included more grassroots ideas and involved people in the shaping of public policies related to the wellbeing of the city and its people.

"So far, public involvement has been rare in any urban improvement activities," said Charles.

He added that it required a holistic approach to pursue strategies to tackle Indonesia's massive problems of urban health.

If many of the city's residents are ill and feel insecure about living here, Jakarta will likely see a downturn its number of residents. The workforce would then have difficulty recruiting skilled staff and the economy would, in the long-term, suffer.

"The human price of urban health problems is massive" Charles said.