The Story Of A Village Midwife In East Sumba, Used To Be Dark Gulita When Helping Residents Give Birth Is Now Bright

MINAHASA - Rona was happy to radiate from the face of Herdiana Hadattau, a resident of Wairra, East Sumba Regency, East Nusa Tenggara, who works as a village midwife.

Thanks to the Wairara Micro Hydro Power Plant (PLTMH) with an installed capacity of 1 x 128 kilowatts (kW), the village is now bright.

Through a short video show, Herdiana said that she often faces difficulties when she has to help pregnant women who are about to give birth. This is made worse by the condition of pregnant women who are not treated with proper education so that they often come with conditions in demand for extra handling.

"There are many things that we found that many pregnant women, less human resources, when they were about to give birth, we didn't have electricity. There were so many problems with understanding, then access to the road access network," he said during the inauguration of the Wairara PLTMH, Wednesday, October 29, which was carried out virtually by the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Bahlil Lahadalia.

Since 2015, Herdiana admitted that she often uses lighting that comes from flashlights when she has to help give birth to mothers in the village.

"Usually we also use generators, we fill them with diesel generators," he added.

Herdiana admitted that she often had to make contributions with colleagues to buy diesel at a price of Rp. 20,000 per liter. In fact, diesel is one of the commodities subsidized by the government.

"So we jointly jointly with our friends, usually 1 bottle or 1 liter we buy at a price of Rp. 20,000," he added.

With shaking eyes and shaking sounds, Herdiana admitted that her work as a village midwife has been made easier since she got access to electricity sourced from PLTMH.

In fact, he can help with emergency handling when requiring oxygen and even c section operations

"After there was electricity, we were very happy. It really helped when we handled the emergency when we needed O2 or c section. With electricity we were very happy," continued Herdiana.

Present as representatives of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources in Wairrara Village, Deputy Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Yuliot Tanjung said from PLTMH Wairra, there were 105 houses that were beneficiaries.

Not only that, this electricity will also illuminate the Basic Secretary (SD), Junior High School (SMP) and public health service centers, to government offices such as the sub-district office, as well as village offices and houses of worship.

"Currently, the Wairara PLTMH is managed by the BUMDES, this is also part of the loading of activities in the village, so with the processing by the BUMDES, the treatment of this PLTMH can run well," Yuliot explained.

The presence of PLTMH Wairrara is an example of utilizing small-scale water energy that is environmentally friendly and in accordance with regional characteristics. It is hoped that it can encourage productive economic activities in the community, such as processing agricultural products, MSMEs, and social activities

Yuliot added that the Wairara PLTMH capacity of 1x128 kW has actually been commissioning and operating to serve public electricity access in Wairrara Village as of November 2022.

"Before the presence of the PLTMH, the people in Wairara only relied on diesel fuel generators with very high operational costs, around 0.35 0.4 liters of diesel per kWh," he explained.

Now, with the operation of the Wairara PLTMH, the effective electricity cost for the community has dropped to around $36 per kWh.

"This shows that there is a savings in public energy costs of up to more than 85 percent, as well as a reduction in diesel consumption by around 62,000 liters per year or Rp1.24 billion per year," said Yuliot.