Malnutrition prevalent in resource-rich province

Panca Nugraha, The Jakarta Post, Mataram |Wed, 06/25/2008

West Nusa Tenggara is a major tourist destination in the country, home to a giant gold mining company and a supplier of labor overseas, yet malnutrition continues to haunt the province.

Despite its natural resources, many people in the province, which borders the less developed East Nusa Tenggara, struggle to pay their medical expenses.


LOVING HANDS: Santi holds her 2-month-old son Muhammad Yusron at a hospital in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, on Monday. The baby, who weighs just 2.5 kilograms, is being treated for malnutrition. (JP/Panca Nugraha)
This fact hit home in the case of 2-month-old Muhammad Yusron, who is being treated for malnutrition at Mataram General Hospital.

Yusron is the first child of Sahirin, 28, and Santi, 22, from Pemepek village in Pringgarata district, Central Lombok.

Santi told The Jakarta Post on Monday she and her husband could not pay their son's hospital expenses.

She said Yusron weighed a normal 4 kilograms at birth, but now weighed just 2.5 kilos.

"He is not suffering from any illnesses, such as fever or a cough, but he refuses to drink milk. We brought him here because his condition is getting worse," she said.

Yusron has been treated at the hospital since June 21, after being referred by the Pemepek community health center.

Santi said that since her son was referred to the hospital, she has been asked for money to cover a variety of costs, including Rp 80,000 (US$8) for the ambulance fee.

"Since being admitted to the hospital, I have had to pay Rp 51,000 for intravenous feeding and Rp 25,000 each day for medicine. They diagnosed my son as suffering from malnutrition," she said.

Santi also has to pay for the formula milk her son is given, at Rp 2,500 per package.

This has placed a huge burden on the family. Sahirin is a contract teacher at an Islamic junior high school in Pemepek, earning a monthly salary of Rp 300,000.

Apart from Yusron, Mataram General Hospital has treated and released dozens of malnourished toddlers over the last three months.

Yusron is no longer attached to an intravenous drip because his parents cannot afford the cost.

"We appeal for government assistance .... We apparently did not report to the village administration before bringing Yusron here," Santi said.

Head of health services and malnutrition at the West Nusa Tenggara Health Office, Sabar Setiawan, told the Post by phone on Monday that the government covered the medical expenses of malnutrition patients, on the condition that they held insurance cards issued to poor families.

"As long as they are program members, they are exempt from medical fees," Sabar said.

The deputy director of Mataram General Hospital, Rumindah, confirmed to the Post the medical costs of low-income families would be covered by the government if they held the insurance cards.

"Not only malnutrition patients, but those suffering from any kind of illness will get free treatment on condition they show their cards. We regard them as general patients when they register without cards," she said.

She said funding for the free healthcare program came from the state and provincial budgets.

The central government, she added, would disburse Rp 3.2 billion soon and set aside another Rp 4.4 billion for the program.

However, she said, that was still not enough to cover everyone, with total hospital costs reaching Rp 1.2 billion monthly, or Rp 14.4 billion annually, in addition to Rp 300 million monthly for medicine, or around Rp 3.6 billion a year.

"To cover the costs, we have to use hospital revenue derived from general patients," she said.

Coordinator of state budget monitoring at the group People's Solidarity for Transparency, Hendriadi, slammed the provincial budget for allocating more money for state spending than public spending.

"Around 67 percent of the Rp 1.1 trillion provincial budget is used for state spending," he said.

The province is famed for its tourist resorts on Lombok Island, is home to U.S.-based gold miner PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara and supplies labor to the Middle East and Malaysia.