December 16, 2002

During and after the Bali Disaster over 20 tons of medicines were donated to assist – mainly from overseas but also from Indonesia. Such was the generosity of the donors and their desire to help – that the medicines soon exceeded the requirements of the immediate victims and in many cases were not suitable. Sanglah hospital rapidly ran out of storage space and additional space was supplied at several locations but principally at the YKIP/Rotary Warehouse located at the offices of PT Mitrais.

It soon became apparent that there was a need to; legalize the medicines; inventory, categorize and test them for legal and safety reasons; create procedures, which satisfied the laws of Indonesia while respecting the wishes of the donors; establish procedures to ensure their transparent distribution to worthy causes

As members of YKIP had been heavily involved as volunteers in the receipt of medicines YKIP has become the representative of the donors. Other parties, which have been involved, have been AusAid who provided a consultant who worked with Dinas Kesehatan, Sanglah hospital and YKIP to establish the procedures for the control and management of the donated medicines. AusAid also provided through OPAL (a major donor) an Australian Pharmacist who helped with categorization of the medicines. The International Medical Corps (IMC) also provided the funds to test the medicines. A full list of the donors is available.

The Governor of Bali issued a decree on the 4th November, this formally legalizes the position and set out the criteria for the distribution of the medicines. A set of operating procedures, were then evolved and were formally agreed by Dinas Kesehatan on the 15th November.

YKIP has provided the funds to establish three Air Conditioned medical warehouses at Sanglah hospital, to inventory, label and classify all the medicines and to establish a computer system and computer to assist the distribution. As an indication of the size of the task the total number of items to be labeled is over 50,000. While this process has been going on those medicines which are suitable have continued to be distributed to the immediate victims of the Bali Bomb. YKIP will also provide a computer operator/junior pharmacist to work with Sanglah hospital until June 2003.

ABOUT YKIP
YKIP – Yayasan Kemanusiaan Ibu Pertiwi is a Foundation established immediately after the Bali Bomb by a group of volunteers, Rotarians, Businessmen, Consular Officials and senior members of the Balinese Medical Fraternity. Its Mission is to improve the life of all Balinese as a tribute to the victims of the tragedy and the effort of the volunteers.

Other YKIP initiatives completed in the last 8 weeks include; the production of a 30 minute Trauma Counseling video for the Balinese community utilising the medium of traditional Wayang Kulit shadow puppet theatre; and a Bali Children’s Education Fund to provide money specifically to enhance educational opportunities for children who have lost a parent in the disaster. YKIP is also working on plans to supply funds for medical training and hospital improvements. YKIP is a founding member of the Bali Recovery Group an informal group of NGO’s dedicated to working together to coordinate their actions.

ENDS
For further information phone Kevin Lovett: +62 361 730 826 or +62 812 3808 095.

JOURNALISTS PLEASE NOTE
The YKIP Foundation would greatly appreciate the publicizing of the Foundation’s website www.ykip.org in all media stories.