Bidan Peduli Anak ODHA
Midwives are a term for people who study in special schools to help women in labor. But in West Jakarta there is a special midwife and different than the usual, because this one midwife in addition to helping women who will give birth, is also very concerned with children born infected with HIV virus. Ropina Tarigan, so the midwife's name. People around her call the 52-year-old woman with the title Midwife Vina.
Through a Foundation called Vina Smart Era Foundation, this one midwife actively pays attention in the form of education, nutrition improvement, health monitoring of children born with the condition of contracting HIV virus. These children contracted the virus because of their parent's parents who are mostly former drug users who uses needles.
One time, when gresnews.com visited where the midwife Vina used to work, the atmosphere was quite crowded. Not exactly at 10 o'clock, one by one kids in yellow base color uniform entered a building that was in the stage of renovation. "Morning..wah, you are all look fresh now," said Midwife Vina cheerfully while greeting and giving warm hugs to the children.
Her hands then deftly take the rice along with side dishes for them. Quite often midwife Vina must feed them one by one. "We must really pay attention to their eating, including checking their supplies of medication," said Vina to gresnews.com who met her at home as well as the foundation's headquarters.
With enthusiasm, this middle-aged woman recounted her early life as a midwife caring for People With HIV / AIDS (PLWHA) in densely populated West Jakarta. Vina recalled that her devotion began when she met a professor from a private university in Jakarta who found that her neighborhood was a hotbed of drugs.
"He has done many activities for youth so they can eliminate dependence on drugs," said Vina. Then, the professor invited him to join the metadon program, which is a replacement program of drug dependency, the program is a legal program from the government and first applied in Tambora, West Jakarta and Gambir, and Kampung Bali, Central Jakarta. "In the early 2007, there I dealt with people who contracted HIV / AIDS," Vina said.
After almost two years Midwife Vina was then invited to join the program of Lentera Anak Pelangi, a program of concern for PLWHA at a private university in Jakarta. The program itself was implemented because it began to find cases of births of children infected with HIV because there are reports from parents who are drug addicts reporting that their children are infected with HIV. "In 2008-2009, the number of times was very much, there were only three cases reported throughout Jakarta," Vina explained.
The number jumped sharply several years later. "From the beginning, only three children we are assisting now have handled 93 children with age criteria between 0-15 years in all of Jakarta and North Jakarta area most," he said. Since then she began to think how to make sure no more children born with HIV infection.
Vina, who was then the Chairman of IBI (Indonesian Midwife Association) in Tambora, West Jakarta, tried to talk with her fellow midwives. "I say from the current data of HIV positive people are housewives, my friends couldn’t believe it including myself," she explained.
Due to disbelief, Vina tried to prove the data with fellow midwife friends by examining pregnant women in one of the clinics practice of independent midwives in the region Tambora. Examination began to be done with a tool called rapid, is a tool that can determine whether the mother with the child in the womb was infected with HIV or not.
"Apparently we find there is one infected fetus, from there I started to think that the data is true," she explained.
The examination was then performed again, this time at a mother and child hospital also in Tambora area. "It turned out that from 16 pregnant women who were examined there were two infected fetuses, from which I am more confident about the truth of the data," she said.
Brief story finally Midwife Vina make training to midwives how to detect and handle pregnant women with the risk of infected fetus HIV virus. This is done in an effort to prevent and suppress the number of children born with HIV. "Imagine if people with HIV / AIDS, get pregnant and give birth to children who turned out to be negative, how happy they would be," Vina said with bright eyes.
Vina continued, after going through all the process with various obstacles and driven by a sense of concern for the condition of children born with HIV / AIDS infection, he then took the initiative to create his own foundation under the name Vina Smart Era Foundation in early 2015. "Of the 93 children I picked about 11 children from the nearest environment in Tambora area to be accompanied" she explained.
The foundation will be in the form of dormitory, where the children will stay, it is done in order to give special attention to them in the form of education, nutrition improvement as well as monitor their health condition. Although the foundation is still hampered by bureaucracy, Vina does not flinch because she thinks that most of the children born with HIV infection are physically disturbed, their capability and most of them do not have parents because they died earlier due to HIV / AIDS.
Some goes fatherless, or vice versa. Some even orphaned, so they should get special attention. "Not long ago, there was one of those children who died dut to the lack of proper attention," Vina said.
The initiative to establish the foundation according to Vina is also to eliminate discrimination against people living with HIV that often occur in society. "The children know nothing, only the victims of their parents' mistakes, everyone has made a mistake, and the illness is indiscriminate, everyone can be infected, so they should be embraced, not shunned or discriminated," Vina said.
This article is quoted from the original source with some photo adjustments used: (Edy Susanto/Gresnews.com)