Help Bek with Tuberculosis after Evacuation
My wonderful friend, Rebecca, who has been living in Indonesia, has had an especially tough 18 months. In the midst of the global pandemic and collapse of the Indonesian healthcare system, she has been unable to get adequate medical diagnosis and treatment for painful breast lumps and related illness. Doctors thought it was breast tuberculosis. However, after undergoing 15 months of Tuberculosis treatment (a form of chemotherapy) and two operations including partial mastectomy, all of which have been unsuccessful to date, last week Rebecca and her family were finally – after 15 months – evacuated from Indonesia to Darwin. They will be travelling on to Perth so that Rebecca can get the medical treatment she urgently needs.
All costs for travelling back to Australia from Central Java and for quarantine were generously paid for by a single friend. Now they need your help to get back on their feet while they re-establish their lives in Australia.
Rebecca and her family did not want to leave Indonesia, but her medical situation combined with COVID-19 pandemic crisis meant she had no other choice. She had to leave her workplace, Indonesian friends, and family. Her husband left his work and their son had just started high school in July 2021. Their emergency relocation has been immensely costly, financially and emotionally. Rebecca and her family are such hard workers (her husband, Didot, is already doing work for me on a research project). Rebecca has been working at an Indonesian university on Indonesian wages, so in this transition will struggle initially to meet everyday expenses in Australia despite working full time.
Budget
School supplies for Bek's son Kayon 250
(Transport) Taxi/petrol 200
Chinese medicine consultations (+3 months Chinese medicine) 700
GP Gap payments 400
Scripts for drugs 250
3 weeks of groceries 500
2nd hand car 3000
4 weeks rent in advance 1200
Beds 500
Total assistance $7,000
Any and all contributions are welcome. So many people are doing it tough, it is only by coming together that we can all survive these crises.
One reason I started this Go-Fund-me is to help someone who always helps others. Rebecca always stands in solidarity with those in need. Over the last 18 months and despite her ill health, Rebecca has been working consistently to analyse the failure of the Indonesian government response to the pandemic crisis and the underlying reasons for the collapse of the health care system in Indonesia from an on-the-ground perspective. See her research on women’s unrecognised leadership in Indonesia’s Covid-19 response, (English and Indonesian) and on the fractured nature of responses to the Covid-19 crisis in Indonesia.
Last month she organised a fundraiser through wecare.id (Academics in Australia Supporting Indonesia's Covid-19 Response), to raise IDR 110,000,000 ($10000 AUD) for Indonesian nurses and victims of COVID. Now she needs help herself. When you help Rebecca, you help a world class researcher and activist who will pay it forward in thousand different ways.
