Police start using oxygen tanks
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)