June/July, 1998
No. 035/VI/98
cover story
After The Boom
What future is there for
Bali's modern theatre
scene?
Warung Society
Bali has its own history of
communal philosophising
and coffee-drinking
Renaissance
Twenty years of Bali's
Festival of the Arts
beyond
bali
Sumbawa's
Secrets
Photographs from
Kuang Amo
regular
features
Dangerous
Times
Orchestrating a
cremation in Ubud
Home Grown
A preview of
the Quicksilver Pro
Adventure
Getting over a fear
of diving
Foreign aid for
optic
health
Books
The Painted Alphabet
reviewed
Food
Two boutique hotels,
two top chefs
Fiction
'Our Moon'
by Mas Ruscitadewi
advertising index for
Bali Echo web site
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A model sight restoration
project has been developed in Bali and is to be replicated throughout the archipelago.
Melody Kemp sheds some light on the matter .
When
most travelers think about health, they think about their own. With suitcases rattling
full of medicaments of varying degrees of usefulness, many launch themselves into their
holiday as though they are entering a hostile environment where plague and pox lurk at
every corner. Few realise that the health of the local people is often as compromised by
the ever-present bugs as theirs. Under the fashionable veneer presented for tourist
consumption, a lot of Indonesians continue to have a hard time. In a country with minimal
welfare systems, unseeing eyes caused by cataracts, infection or Vitamin A deficiency are
major problems in communities which rely on each members’ capacity to work. For
women, blindness, a squint or a skewed eye can reduce their eligibility for marriage, as
such taints are regarded as signs that the person may be touched by evil.
FOREIGN AID, LOCAL HEALER
John Fawcett, a tall, large-framed Australian, is the honorary in-country co-ordinator of the West Australian-based Australian Rotary Sight Restoration Project which has brought light to thousands of Indonesians. I joined John for his rounds at the BKMM (Balai Kesehatan Mata Masyarakat - the Community Optic Health Centre) - which is housed in the old leprosy hospital in Denpasar. By 10am there were already about 150 people waiting for consultations with Dr. Wayan Gede Dharyata, the Balinese eye specialist, and his colleagues. A visiting American doctor was showing some local medical students the fine points of procedures and examination techniques. The scene was a bit sci-fi: patients had their heads in steel harnesses, while needle fine beams of light were shone into their eyes as they were carefully examined.
In a quieter moment, Dr. Dharyata confided: "In 1982 a survey was done of Indonesians which revealed that 1.2% were completely blind. Since then, the Department of Health has been carrying out surveys every three years. In 1997 they found that the rate had increased to 1.5%. I was pleased about this, not because it was showing that there was more blindness but because it meant that people were living longer."
In the old days it was regarded as normal that as you grew older, you would become blind. In the hinterlands of Bali, far from shopaholics and sun-crisped noses, farmers and their families live a long way from the health services and information that would help them deal effectively with failing eye-sight. In Indonesia, the major causes of blindness are cataracts, followed by glaucoma and, coming a close third, nerve damage and loss of refractive ability through damaged retinas. Vitamin A deficiency is found only in the remoter parts of Indonesia now, though one can see the empty sockets and malformation left as a legacy of times when food was short. Chronic eye infections and traumatic damage to eyes still occur, and they certainly damage sight, but do not usually cause blindness.
"The Bali Rotary Project was so great because we were able to bring the most effective and advanced, sophisticated technology directly to the people. They don’t have to travel or search for help. We come to them. The Mobile Clinic represents the most effective form of treatment and because the results are so immediate, villagers are motivated to bring other family members. And of course, they have also begun to realise that it is not compulusory to be blind when you are old. And thanks to Rotary Australia, its all free," Dr. Dharyata smiled before returning to his patients.
While I waited for John, I talked with Ketut Mayu, a tall, thin man with soft brown eyes who was patiently leaning against the railings. His mother Ni Made Monang, known in her dotage as Dong Adus (70+) was waiting for the operation that would give her at least part of her sight back. "She has cataracts in two eyes, she can’t work and she is miserable," her son told me. I learned that three other adults in his family had also contracted cataracts. All had been operated on and were now enjoying full sight. They had paid nothing. I looked at his mother, whose eyes were the cloudy milky white that typifies cataracts, as she stared into a sightless middle distance. Then my eyes slid along the rows of others waiting like Dong Adus. They were all calm, resigned, even hopeful. No-one looked downcast or afraid. After seven years of success, the project has earned people’s trust.
Above:
Dr. Wayan Gede Dharyata.
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