Ardita R. Çaesari

 

Asked what she'll never forget about her time in Aceh, health practitioner Agnes Mallipu contemplates quietly before saying: "I've found people who'd lost most of their family members, but went on telling me how they lost them in an easy going manner. I just can't imagine their feelings..." "I met a boy of around three years old in Lamrabo Village (Greater Banda Aceh District). He did not talk and just sat there quietly. I felt sad because other children were playing on the field. Later on, his aunt came telling me that the boy had lost his younger sibling and that the kid had kept asking and looking for him since." The effects of the tsunami in Aceh, which killed at least 200,000 Acehnese and displaced almost another half million of people, also had a great impact on health practitioners like Mallipu. Now that shehas safely returned home from working in the devastated area for the aid agency Church World Service of Indonesia (CWS) and remains safely in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, she still keeps thinking about her time in Aceh regularly, saying: "I'll try to go as back soon I can. It has been horrible at times,but rewarding as well. I know the people need me there."

 

 

Devastation

Before the young health practitioner had set foot on the tarmac of Medan City airport on January 9, she didn't have a clue what to expect in Aceh. Nevertheless, not even having made it to Aceh yet, the situation seemed hectic already. The local flight schedules at the airport of Medan were chaotic due to large numbers of humanitarian aid cargo planes landing at the airport, making it practically impossible for Mallipu and fellow doctors to reach Aceh in time by plane. Unfortunately in the end, after four days of waiting to get hold of a seat on the airplane heading to Banda Aceh, the airport-

logistics in Medan proved nothing compared to the horrible situation she would soon find in Banda Aceh. Mallipu: "I saw the first devastation myself when our airplane circled over Banda Aceh in order to land. Nearly every building in the area had been swept away and the local airport was a mess. But the situation in the city was even worse. Corpses could still be seen in the open and the smell of death was terrible. Passing by trucks, we had to cover our noses as bodies were being putt in mass graves everywhere." After overcoming the first impressions of the highly damaged city, Mallipu and her team -consisting of two volunteers, herself, and a Acehnese doctor who arrived later on- started to work straight away. "I was shocked when getting there, but kept on working as I didn't forget it was my job to provide medical service." Provisions of basic medical services proved to be most important in the Achenese capital. Health check-ups and the dispensing of essential medicines were taken care of as quickly as Mallipu and her team could.

Day-to-day relief

 

Of all patients treated, nearly a quarter turned out to have lost their homes due to the effects of the tsunami and thus had become internally displaced persons (IDP's). Other patients that weren't directly affected by the tsunami, had lost access to medical service due to perished health infrastructures and loss of health care providers. Among the patients; Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI), dermatitis, common cold, dyspepsia and gastritis ranked the top five of observations, followed by psychosomatic cases which were especially dominant among the internally displaced persons. In the four weeks that Mallipu provided medical assistance in Banda Aceh, there were three aftershocks of the earthquake that had caused the tsunami in the Indian Ocean. "Every time an aftershock hit Aceh, we had to calm down the local people. They would panic and were very scared that another tsunami would

strike them. Luckily, since we had moved inland, there were no risks of anything like this and we only had to calm their nerves." Since Mallipu was the only medically trained staff member on her team, she often would work more than twelve hours a day to get things done. Starting in the early mornings while grabbing her breakfast, she would already check on her paperwork of recorded medical cases and names of villages and sub districts. After checking her boxes of medicines and other medical supplies, she would leave for her office at 09:00 AM frequently using a rented "labi-labi" - a local term for a minivan used as public transportation in Banda Aceh to ease access to remote areas of Banda Aceh and the adjacent Greater Aceh- Districts (Aceh Besar). After working outdoors in the 'field', Mallipu usually returned to her office at 6:00 PM. After all volunteers and the "labi-labi" here would already have left, she still had to make a daily report of the places that she had gone that day, had to record the patients that she'd served, had to file all the different medical cases that she'd discovered and had to prepare potions for the next day. Mallipu: "Working long days was the only solution, since people had to wait three to four hours to be diagnosed. I just had to speed up the process, since I was the only medically trained staff member of our team."

 

 

Idealism

Providing medical service in disaster-affected areas like the Districts of Banda Aceh and the Greater Aceharea (Aceh Besar) still poses huge challenges, says Mallipu. This is due to the limited number of human resources, limited medical supplies and the variety of places to practice medical service. The latter varied from inside the 'labi-labi', small Mosques, tents and simple plastic mats in the open air. Even though the work in Aceh has put great strains on Agnes Mallipu, she firmly states that she has enjoyed her work, saying: "I heard about what happened in Banda Aceh and agreed to come here because this is the only thing that I can do to help. My friends always question me, why I do it. But I'm a doctor that did not choose to make lots of money. I just feel good when I'm able to help people that need it. "