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Afterlife facility: New app offers free dead body carriage service
The app, dubbed Barzah, is designed as a solution to costly ambulance services and difficult ambulance accessibility.
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An ambulance carrying dead bodies arrives at Bhayangkara Hospital in Palu, Central Sulawesi in this file photo. (thejakartapost.com/Ruslan Sangadji)
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n September 2017, Rudianto and his wife Henny, who lived in Benda, Tangerang, Banten, shocked the public after taking their dead baby daughter home from a hospital in West Jakarta on a motorcycle. They did it because they could not afford to pay for an ambulance (in Indonesia, the vehicle used to transport a dead body is also called an ambulance).
They are not alone.
In July 2019, a mother in Cianjur, West Java, also took her dead baby home on a motorcycle. The reason: She had no money to pay for the ambulance. Similar cases have also happened in other regions.
In a bid to ease the burden on low-income people who lose loved ones, social foundation Dompet Dhuafa plans to provide a free ambulance service.
The app, dubbed Barzah, is designed as a solution to costly ambulance services and difficult ambulance accessibility.
The Barzah app will be available to download on Google Playstore for Android smartphone users starting Feb. 2, 2020. It offers a free, real-time, 24/7 ambulance service. To begin with, the service will operate 57 ambulances spread across Greater Jakarta.
Ahmad Shonhaji, the director for culture, da’wa (preaching) and social services at Dompet Dhuafa, said his institution saw the need to create the app as the demand for ambulance services for the deceased had risen recently.
