P

apua has been named as the province with the worst sanitation in Indonesia, garnering a score of 45 while the national average is 75, due to unhealthy lifestyle habits and a lack of clean water.

'€œFrankly speaking, our sanitation program in Papua is the worst in Indonesia. I have just received a red flag from Jakarta,'€ Papua Provincial Health Agency head Aloysius Giayi said in Jayapura on Tuesday.

Aloisyus blamed the situation on local people'€™s poor hygiene habits, such as not washing hands before eating, defecating haphazardly, a lack of clean water, as well as littering.

He said the low score was not just the responsibility of his agency but also of other institutions including the environment office and the public works agency.

He said that 35 of the province'€™s total 3,000 villages had implemented community based total sanitation (STBM). In the 35 villages, the amount of people that already had access to clean water was 46 percent and those with hygienic toilets was 42 percent.

In fact, based on the 2015 target of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), access to clean water should have been 68 percent and sanitation access 70 percent.

'€œWith regard to this, we, in Papua, still have to catch up. Synergy among sanitation players needs to be strengthened, such as cross-sector cooperation,'€ he said.

To help improve community health services, including sanitation, Aloisyus said the provincial health agency had launched a so-called barefoot health services program.

Since the beginning of May 2015, he said, 95 personnel had been trained and deployed in villages to offer door-to-door services. They were to work for the program for eight months.

'€œI am confident that through the barefoot services program, in less than two years sanitation in Papua will have met the national standard,'€ he said.

Data from the Indonesia Urban Water Sanitation and Hygiene (IUWASH) program in 2014 revealed that the number of people in the provincial capital of Jayapura who defecated haphazardly was higher than the number of people using hygienic toilets.

'€œOnly thirty percent of households in Jayapura use septic tanks. The remaining 70 percent still defecate haphazardly in rivers, ditches and in Sentani Lake,'€ IUWASH spokesperson Andi Mustarayani said previously.