This engineer is a real hero. He builds and provides free incubators for poor families in Indonesia.
They say that when you are good at something, never do it for free. But engineering professor Raldi Artono Koestoer from the University of Indonesia breaks that rule without qualms, and goes on to save lives of more than a thousand Indonesian babies.
Social Impact
He now dedicates himself in building cheap incubators on his own and lending them for free to low-income families. Raldi uses his engineering expertise to design ultra-light, portable incubators for premature babies to use.
Source: Juan Karnadi’s Facebook
“The government has a program of public health insurance, but it cannot cover all the people,” Raldi told the AFP.
Indonesia’s public insurance scheme, which started in 2014, could cater to the family’s health needs, including the incubation of premature babies, but only for a while. Some parents in the poverty line are forced to take their newborns home early still premature.
Medical Problem
Premature births is a serious health issue in Indonesia. According to the World Health Organization, the country is recorded as the fifth nation in the world to have the greatest number of premature births with 675,700 annually. It added that pre-term birth complications are the leading cause of death among children under five.
Such situation urged Raldi to act on making more incubators.
When he started to work on one as he fixed one device of his elder brother who is a paediatrician, little did he understand the impact of his invention, until he kept providing the service. So he never stopped building incubators.
But because he was not filthy rich, he asked for funding from generous people around Indonesia. Usually, he received money from middle-class professionals and many in the healthcare sector. Each gave $260 for the cost of one incubator.
One of the babies that Raldi has helped. Source: AFP
And so far, his health advocacy has a 100% success rate. In the 180 incubators that he made which helped 1,500 premature babies, twins and triplets included, across 49 cities in the archipelagic country of Indonesia, all of them are alive and healthy, Raldi says. Each one of them.
Social Good
Although providing such health service could be stressful, Raldi feels all of that hard work is worth it especially when he meets the children he has helped.
Source: Julius Setya Kesuma’s Facebook
“When a mother comes here with her baby and it is in good health, I’m the happiest man in the world,” said the 62-year-old engineer.
Those who want to avail the free use of incubator around Indonesia only needs to text a special number, and a volunteer brings one around for them. All costs are covered.
Source: Medical Xpress
