Even when times were good and tourists flocked to Lovina’s beaches, most of the villagers on Bali’s north coast remained as poor as they had always been. Since the bomb two years ago, even the small trickle-down effect of the tourist dollar has stopped. Nourishing food is rare and cash is rarer. When disaster strikes these very poor families in the form of an illness, accident or difficult pregnancy, many head for the green gates of the Crisis Care Foundation. No one is ever turned away.
The Foundation’s free clinic was primarily designed as a birthing centre, but its dedicated little staff has dealt with everything from advanced cancer and ulcerating wounds to traffic accidents. “These people have no money fo ambulances or hospitals,” explains Gloria, the Australian volunteer who founded and now directs Crisis Care. “We do the best we can for them. In severe cases, we stabilize the victims and send them to hospital, then find try to find donors to meet the medical bills.”
Crisis Care liaises with Dr Asmarajaya at Sanglah Hospital, who has operated on many children brought in by Gloria. “He’s a wonderful doctor, and so helpful,” says Gloria. “Bali is lucky to have him.” The modest little clinic has a simple labour room and recovery room; Gloria proudly points out the IV drip stand, cobbled together from a pedestal fan and other bits and pieces. We leaf through a grisly photo album of hideous tumours, gaping wounds and birth defects, an anthology of suffering and courage. Gloria, Dayu (a highly trained nurse and midwife), Kadek (the nurse) and an on-call doctor work with very basic equipment and insufficient medications. The local government and police are very helpful and supportive of Crisis Care.
The team cares for the area’s 42 AIDS cases, most of whom have been abandoned by their families. “The social system is breaking down as people leave the family to make their own way,” explains Gloria, who lost a son to AIDS. “Increasingly there is no one to look after the elderly, and ignorance of AIDS is so great that the patients are often not even given food.” The team also provides emotional support and counseling to the 23 village children who are victims of foreign pedophiles posing as tourists in Lovina. Outreach services include home visits to those who are unable to go to the clinic, school support programs, emergency aid with disasters such as the bombing in Kuta, landslides, fires, flooding, homelessness, family support, provision of medical equipment for other clinics in need and liaison with Government and non Government agencies when needed.
It’s a constant struggle to meet the modest overheads of the clinic – staff salaries (Gloria donates her time and meets her own expenses), electricity and medical supplies cost about $900 a month. Private donors commit to less than a third of this and there is no public funding, so Gloria has the added task of scrambling for several million rupiah every month. Medical supplies that are generously donated from international sources to Crisis Care Foundation often don’t reach the clinic due to restrictive import legislation and bureaucracy. Financial support is always needed to purchase much-needed medicines for the clinic.
Gloria’s goal is to start distancing herself from the clinic. “The staff is well trained now and able to cope with anything that comes through the door. I was a social worker for 20 years in Australia, and I want to focus more on the social issues facing the very poor in this community.” Poor nutrition is one of them. Some families have no land on which to grow vegetables and eat only rice – when they have the cash to buy it. Crisis Care has bought a small plot of land and is building a community centre to help meet the needs of the area’s poorest families. About 6.5 are have been allocated for them to learn to grow vegetables and medicinal herbs with the assistance of Yayasan IDEP, a local Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) based in Ubud.
The vegetables will be used in a soup kitchen to provide nutritious meals to the many children who suffer from malnutrition and vitamin deficiency. The Centre will also be used to help families develop survival skills. “We need to develop some products for sale to generate some cash. A donor has kindly given us five sewing machines, and women need to be trained to use them. There will be classes in health, nutrition, the use of traditional healing herbs, safe motherhood and child care.” The development of the building and these projects will cost about $6,000.
There are angels in Bali, as one would expect. Gloria is one. Another who declines to be named donated a vehicle to Crisis Care last week, enabling the team to more easily serve the far-flung community.
But more angels are needed – angels to commit to helping meet the Foundation’s running costs, angels to provide medicine and equipment and angels to help create the urgently-needed community centre.
If you feel a stir of wings behind you or know of someone who would like to help, please contact Gloria at balicrisiscare@hotmail.com. The website can be visited at www.balicrisiscare.org
Yayasan IDEP is currently working with the Crisis Care Foundation to support the clinic and develop strategies for the community centre’s long term self-sustainability. If you would like more information about these activities, please contact Samantha Sinclair at the IDEP Foundation (idepmicro@centrin.dps.net.id) or visit the IDEP website at www.idepfoundation.org
