Samsuridjal gives all he has to help those with HIV

Debbie A. Lubis The Jakarta Post Jakarta

When a group of health workers and community leaders leisurely chatted with an HIV positive woman on her veranda, residents in a village in Indramayu regency, West Java were startled.

They were even more surprised watching a doctor eat snacks offered by the woman. The residents were afraid the doctor would be infected by the virus.

The doctor is Samsuridjal Djauzi, who set up Pelita Ilmu Foundation (YPI) -- an organization which campaigns against the spread of HIV, with his colleagues in 1989, at a time when not many people were aware or well-informed about the disease.

The 58-year-old internist said many people in the village knew the woman was HIV positive since it was hard to keep a secret there.

"We need to set an example to the public that HIV is not contagious through a handshake or food. With proper information, I believe people, especially those living in villages, will not fear, stigmatize or discriminate against people with HIV/AIDS," said the director of Dharmais National Cancer Center of the 1997 visit.

And the effort was not fruitless. He said that a year after the team visited the woman, the villagers dared to bring their children to attend a birthday party of the woman's daughter.

In Indramayu regency, as well as in Karawang regency, West Java, Samsuridjal installed YPI's activists there after finding out that most of the HIV positive sex workers who were cast out of Batam in Riau, were from both regencies. In their jobs, those activists work alongside community health center's health workers in the area to educate villagers about HIV/AIDS.

In its line of work, the foundation did not only receive praise, but also criticism, some saying that its campaigns focus more on teenagers than sex workers.

"Actually, teenagers are a high-risk group since they are sexually active. Besides, they still have plenty of time to prevent themselves from being infected by the virus," said the man who got his doctorate degree from the University of Indonesia in 2001.

Born in Bukittingi, West Sumatra in May 1945, Samsuridjal grew up with his two siblings in Kampung Bali, Tanah Abang area in Central Jakarta from the age of 10. His father, once a teacher in West Sumatra, became a textile trader in Jakarta while his mother remained a housewife.

His regular job was helping his mother shop at the market in the morning and then assisting his father in the store, until he was in his fourth year at university.

As a child, Samsuridjal loved to read and had read the works of Tolstoy, Rabindranath Tagore, Hemingway, Nehru, Maxim Gorki, Abdul Muis, Sutan Takdir Alisyahbana, Selasih, Hamka, Pramudya Ananta Toer, and Nur Sutan Iskandar, all when he was still in elementary school.

"At first, the librarian did not allow me to borrow those books because I was too young to understand. But I was persistent since I had finished all the children's books," he recalled.

In his adolescent years, Samsuridjal was active in several organizations like the Islamic Students Association (HMI). At the time when he chaired HMI, he was 20 years old, and was often interrogated by the police suspicious that the organization's activities were backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

"It's my family, books and organizational activities that make me always side with those who are marginalized because I've been there myself, feeling hungry because we did not have food, or did not have money to buy shoes. But being poor did not stop me from achieving my goals," he said.

Samsuridjal graduated in 1969 from the University of Indonesia's School of Medicine and furthered his studies in internal medicine. In 1973 he was awarded a scholarship to study tropical medicine and hygiene at Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.

"I sent half of my US$200 allowance to my wife and son back home. I passed those hard times though I lost weight drastically," said the man, who got married in 1970. His second child, a daughter, was born when he was still studying in Bangkok.

Back home, in 1976, he was assigned by the Ministry of Health to Samarinda General Hospital in East Kalimantan. At that time, he was the only specialist in the province and was elected as the chairman of Samarinda chapter of the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI).

"Maybe the life in Samarinda had inspired my children to become doctors. I always took them to visit patients in remote areas by speedboat but I never tried to influence them to choose a particular occupation," said the father of two, both doctors.

And it was his concern over the rapid spread of HIV in the country that made Samsuridjal dedicate himself to campaign against the deadly virus.

In 1996, while visiting Merauke regency in Papua, he brought along with him pictures of people displaying HIV/AIDS symptoms and showed them to local community leaders. After looking at the photos, the leaders said some residents in their villages had showed similar symptoms.

"Within two hours, we found six people with HIV/AIDS symptoms. Some of them had even developed severe symptoms like diarrhea, mouth sores with fungal growth and were emaciated. There, we were touched watching a man who was taking care of his ailing 20-year- old nephew using a plastic bag to cover his hands," recalled Samsuridjal, who also set up a community-based drug rehabilitation program in Kampung Bali, Central Jakarta in cooperation with the local community health center there.

His work has not always run smoothly. In 1995, he was barred from treating patients in an exclusive hospital in Jakarta for helping HIV positive people. Instead of suing the hospital, the chairman of the Indonesian Internists Association trained the hospital's nurses and management in dealing with people with HIV/AIDS.

The fact that HIV/AIDS cases continued to rise moved Samsuridjal and his colleagues to expand their work, by providing drugs for HIV/AIDS patients. After collecting some money to import generic Antiretroviral drugs from India and Thailand, they -- through the working groups on HIV/AIDS of the University of Indonesia, distributed the drugs to those in need.

However, demand has exceeded the supply.

At present, there are 350 people with HIV in the country who have access to the generic life-saving drugs while some 85,000 others cannot afford the treatment. The rest are still on the waiting list to get the cheap drugs.

"I wish the country could produce its own Antiretroviral drugs that are affordable and accessible for HIV positive people, especially the poor."