Poor parents want to take coma baby home

Poor parents want to take coma baby home

Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The baby in the third bed from the door has a tube through her
nose to feed her formula milk. Once in a while the one-year-old
twitches restlessly.

"Please, get better," whispers her father softly while
caressing her legs, which are stiff and misshapen from the
convulsions caused by her prolonged high fever. She can not hear
him, nor the countless other pleas her parents have uttered.
Although her eyes are half open, she lingers in unconsciousness
and does not see a thing.

"Her fever just won't go down," her mother, Rumiati, said on
Thursday.

It has been over two months since the youngest child of
Djuhara and Rumiati was brought to the Persahabatan Hospital in
East Jakarta. Although she has become plumper, no other
significant improvement can be seen.

Sintiya arrived at the hospital already chronically ill, said
Komarahmi, head of the Bugenville children's ward. "The baby was
diagnosed with meningitis serosa or inflammation of the brain
membrane and we found fluid under her brain membrane."

Although the doctor has explained to the troubled parents that
Sintiya might need a long time to recover, for them, two months
seems long enough. "We want to take her home," said Rumiati.

"We can't afford it anymore," Djuhara lamented. The 37-year-
old father works as an ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver and earns
about Rp 50,000 (US$5.88) a day. His wife works as a laundress,
earning Rp 250,000 a month. She has stopped working since her
baby was hospitalized.

Although the parents have a letter stating their poverty from
the subdistrict chief of East Kelapa Gading in North Jakarta,
where they live, and the City Spiritual Development and Social
Welfare Agency, they were initially only given a 50 percent
reduction. In fact they should owe half of the Rp 3.4 million
bill for Sintiya's treatment.

"This morning it was approved that they would be released from
paying all fees," said Komarahmi. The city administration will
later reimburse the hospital for the costs incurred.

Nevertheless, the family still cannot afford to keep Sintiya
in hospital. "The medicine she needs is outside JPS," said
Djuhara, referring to the list of medicine eligible to be
reimbursed from the social welfare (JPS) fund.

So far, the family have spent up to Rp 3 million for medicine
and a CT-scan. "I have to think of my other two children too,"
Djuhara said. They are in the care of his brother-in-law in
Bekasi and can longer go to school since there is no money.

Worse, the family recently lost their home as they have no
money for rent. Djuhara now lives between his ojek hang-out and
the hospital. "We have to find a new place to stay before the
children can come home," he said.

Sintiya's prognosis is not good, according to Sri
Purwaningsih, manager of Installation B at the hospital.

"From medical indications, the child shouldn't go home yet,"
she said. However, if the family persists in taking her, the
hospital will release the baby, but only after the family has
signed a waiver.