The worsening haze health impacts has inspired the creation of public initiatives to help victims, with people volunteering to distribute masks and treat people suffering from respiratory problems
he worsening haze health impacts has inspired the creation of public initiatives to help victims, with people volunteering to distribute masks and treat people suffering from respiratory problems.
Twenty-six-year-old Surianto from Pekanbaru, one of the regions most affected by the haze, volunteered by joining established agencies, such as Relawan Rumah Zakat, the volunteer arm of an NGO focusing on collecting and distributing alms.
'We want to make people happy. When we come and see people smile, we are so happy. We are not being paid anything,' he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
Rumah Zakat volunteers have distributed masks over the past few months as haze from the annual forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan continues to wreak havoc on people's health, with more than 140,000 people reporting respiratory infections in smog-choked areas.
'Since the air quality has entered hazardous levels, we are switching from surgical masks to N-95 respirator masks,' Surianto said.
Surgical masks, which are thin, are not designed or certified to prevent the inhalation of small airborne contaminants. The N-95 respirators, meanwhile, are able to efficiently filter the smallest particles able to reach the lungs.
'We have distributed tens of thousands of surgical masks and thousands of N-95 respirators. The latter is more expensive so we have to be selective in distributing them,' said Surianto.
Health Minister Nila F. Moeloek said that surgical masks were more appropriate in the current situation as it was easier to breath through the mask, as opposed to N-95 respirators, which had smaller pores.
'The [N-95] is actually for [use during] disasters. So for health, we are using [surgical] masks,' she said.
The volunteers are prioritizing children, as they are the most prone to become victims of the haze.
'They are more prone [to illness] and difficult to monitor because they like to play outside their houses as schools are closed in some regions because of the haze,' Surianto said.
In West Kalimantan, for example, respiratory problems have hit children between the age of six months to eight years the hardest.
Muhammad Septian Gunawan, an 11-year-old infant, had to be treated at the intensive care unit in Yarsi Hospital in Pontianak for pneumonia.
Seeing the worsening condition of his only child, Heri Gunawan asked the hospital to move his son to Soedarso General Hospital to receive better treatment. He was told that he would have to pay extra to ensure his son's transfer, even though Septian is covered by the national health insurance (JKN).
The Healthcare and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan), which administers the insurance, said that respiratory problems were covered by the BPJS.
'Pneumonia is covered as long as the patient follows the procedures. If the illness is new, then there should be a medical examination first,' BPJS Kesehatan spokesman Irfan Humaidi told the Post.
He said that if there were cases of patients suffering from haze-related health problems being rejected by hospitals under the JKN program, BPJS Kesehatan needed to verify and investigate the reports first.
Other movements, such as Sekolah Relawan (Volunteer School), are focusing on dealing with the core of the haze problems, which are land and forest fires.
'We each have our own role. There are communities who distribute masks while we help put out the fires. But we are helping each other,' Sekolah Relawan founder Bayu Gawtama told the Post.
Small communities had contacted Sekolah Relawan to utilize its network in Kalimantan in order to distribute masks there, he added.
Among those lending a hand in Kalimantan is relief.sg, a humanitarian NGO based in Singapore, which distributed N-95 respirators in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan, on Monday.
Relief.sg CEO Jonathan How said the NGO had decided to help those in need in Kalimantan as they realized the severity of the haze problem, which had affected their country as well. 'Even major events have had to be cancelled, like in Singapore, two days ago there was an international swimming event cancelled [because of the haze].'
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