TPST Bantargebang is one of the biggest landfills in the world with an area of more than 104 hectares. There are approximately 6000 scavengers living with vulnerable social and health rights in TPST Bantargebang. This is due to their unhealthy home environment that could cause health problems, such as acute respiratory infection, skin problems, and gastrointestinal complaints. The factor risks underlying their disease are low personal hygiene, long working-time duration, poor water sanitation, and inadequate personal protective equipment for the scavengers in Bantargebang.
Low health levels of people in Bantargebang is also caused by the unavailability of health insurance from the government to protect the people in Bantargebang. Moreover, medical waste management is still ignoring the rules and regulations applied. There are only 4.1% out of 3000 hospitals that are licensed to manage toxic and hazardous waste with incinerators and a low number of collaborations between third parties and unlicensed hospitals to manage medical waste. Indonesia also produce high amount of medical waste daily that it reaches 383 tons of waste based on Asosiasi Rumah Sakit Indonesia. Therefore, there are a lot of burden for the landfill to receive without managing the waste properly.
In order to fix that, the Bantargebang community and people in general need an increase in awareness about their rights to achieve proper living, especially for health rights. Hence, SCORP CIMSA UI is interested to contribute more in this field in order to achieve human rights for all through the Health for the Marginalized (HEAR!) event.
On 2nd of February, 2023, HEAR! uploaded a video through CIMSA UI’s Youtube Channel about Bantargebang scavengers’ condition. HEAR! also held a panel discussion about “Health Insurance for the Vulnerable: Bantargebang Scavengers” and was attended by Komisi Persampahan Nasional and the Head of PBHI to increase awareness and knowledge for the public about their health rights. On 4th of February, 2023, HEAR! held another panel discussion about “Medical Waste Management Problems in TPST Bantargebang” and was attended by Kementerian Kesehatan, Komisi Persampahan Nasional, and WALHI Nasional to increase awareness and knowledge for the public and stakeholders to make regulations about medical waste management. This series of events is followed by providing education about sanitation, clean water, and WHO’S 6 steps of handwashing to Bantargebang people and also followed by a free medical check-up for the scavengers.
Through HEAR!, we really hope all parties, including the Bantargebang people, the public, and stakeholders, can be aware, pay attention, and contribute in creating policies to end human rights problems, especially for scavengers in Bantargebang.
SCORP
Standing Committee on Human Rights and Peace
CIMSA
Empowering Medical Students
Improving Nation's Health
