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.