Gas Blast Victim Ridho Finally Gets Treatment After Appeal to President
Jakarta Globe, Camelia Pasandaran, July 21, 2010
Ridho Januar is finally getting treatment after his mother took the gas explosion victim to the state palace for help and she made the headlines. (JG Photo/Safir Makki)
Jakarta.Susi Haryani is no longer crying.
The unemployed mother of 4-year-old Ridho is elated that her son, disfigured in March by a gas cylinder explosion in Bojonegoro, East Java, is finally receiving the treatment he needs.
Susi made headlines after she and her son tried unsuccessfully on Monday to meet the president at the State Palace to ask for help in getting further treatment.
The explosion that maimed Ridho happened in a rented room they were sharing. Susi had started cooking when a gas leak caused the blast and severely burned her son.
The East Java government provided treatment for the burns, but Susi said her son now needed plastic surgery to rebuild his face. Her desperation at having no money to pay for it drove her to try to seek help directly from the president.
Instead, she and her son were taken in a presidential car to state energy firm PT Pertamina’s offices, where it was arranged for Ridho to be treated at Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital.
“Ridho is now in the special burn unit,” Susi told the Jakarta Globe. “I will stay here until he has recovered.
“If the doctors ask my son to stay, then I will stay to accompany him. If they want my son to be an outpatient, I will just obey what they say.”
Her story was reported widely on Tuesday, prompting many organizations and individuals to offer to finance her son’s surgery. But Susi said she would not take any money offered.
“I want them to just give it to the hospital,” she said. “I don’t want to hold the money myself, or else people may say I was only looking for money. So please, those who offered help, just give it to the hospital directly.”
Presidential spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha said the palace had not turned Susi away when she came to seek the president’s help.
“There was no rejection, not at all,” Julian said.
“I think there is a misperception and miscommunication here. I talked to Pertamina, telling them that this victim had come to Jakarta and was now at the palace. I asked the palace staff to prepare a car and they took them to Pertamina’s offices.”
Julian said the palace also had coordinated with the Health Ministry over the treatment needed.
Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih, speaking after visiting Ridho and his mother at the hospital, said: “We will bear all the costs,” referring to the government and Pertamina. She gave no estimates.
Julian said it was the right of every citizen to come to the palace, but the primary responsibility to deal with victims lay with local authorities.
“Because the victims are from East Java, the ones who should handle it are the local government in coordination with the local oil and gas authority, so they should not directly come here,” he said.
“It is our concern, and the president expresses his deepest sympathy to the victims and has already asked the health minister to coordinate with Pertamina in handling the case.”
Julian also said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono wanted all victims of gas canister explosions to be treated well.
There have been scores of explosions blamed on leaks from faulty parts on stoves using three-kilogram gas canisters.
Millions of the stoves have been distributed since 2006 under a program to reduce fuel subsidies by swapping kerosene for cheaper liquefied petroleum gas.
Badly disfigured and injured Muhammad Sofyan in Gatot Subroto Hospital in Central Jakarta. Sofyan's four surviving daughters can not raise enough money to pay for his care after a Pertamina LPG cylinder exploded in his Tangerang home and killed his wife. (JG Photo/Stephanie Riady)
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