Police start using oxygen tanks
JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta Traffic Police Directorate has started using standard oxygen tanks to help reduce the impact of gas emissions on traffic police.
The officers keep the tanks handy so that they can have a whiff of fresh air every now and then.
"It's just a tryout to temporarily minimize the level of polluted air inhaled by the Jakarta traffic police everyday," deputy to National Police chief for operational affairs Maj. Gen. MB Hutagalung told The Jakarta Post yesterday.
The two-star general said that the Jakarta Police headquarters also plans to routinely rotate senior officers on street duty to administrative duty in an effort to relieve them from constantly working in a polluted atmosphere.
Early this year, the city police provided a number of air- filter masks to traffic officers. However, only a handful of the officers can be found wearing the masks as most claimed they found them ineffective.
"A mask was found to be very ineffective because we had to remove it when we wanted to blow a whistle, put it back on, then remove it again, and do it all again later," said a traffic police officer.
According to Maj. Subando Harwanto, head of the special Jakarta traffic police squad, there are currently about 400 officers assigned to manage the city's main roads everyday.
"The number does not include hundreds of traffic officers from local police precincts," Subando told the Post.
Chief Sergeant Darsa said that breathing in fresh air after being on a heavily polluted street for three hours really helps him regain his stamina.
Darsa has spent 12 years directing traffic on Jakarta's main streets where the air is thick with vehicle emissions, particularly at rush hour.
"I feel that I'm okay, but I don't know what's inside my body because I haven't had a thorough checkup," he said.
A Thai traffic police sergeant, who had worked on Bangkok's streets for just two years, died last year after suffering severe chest pains and leg cramps. The officer, identified as Sgt. Amnuay Soonjin, had had a bad cough and had vomited up blood.
During his two-year term, Amnuay developed respiratory trouble and inflammation of the lungs. Air pollution inhaled while on the job was thought to be the cause.
A recent study about the effect of vehicular gas emission revealed that a great number of Jakarta traffic officers suffer from pollution-related diseases, including stress.
Average air samples on Bangkok streets contain 22 parts per million of carbon monoxide. The tolerable limit according to the international standard is 30 ppm.
Environmentalists say that Jakarta's air is only a little better than that of Bangkok. (bsr)