Lates from Paricara

The Regency of Ponorogo is situated between 111?7’-111?52’longitute and 7?49’-8?20’ latitude measured from 0? of Greenwich, England. It borders with some Districs such as Distric Wonogiri (Central Java) in the West, Distric Pacitan in the Southern West Distric Trenggalek and Tulungagung in the East, and Distric Magetan and Madiun in the North. The area is 1,371.78 km² wide. Distric Ponorogo is composed of 21 sub districts (counties) and 303 villages and kelurahan. The total number of its population is 919.392 people (231.498 households) with the density 670 people/km². Most of Ponorogo’s areas are dry and unfertilized hills and only a few numbers of its valleys have irrigation. With such demography and geography, Distric Ponorogo has many poor sites. Its main agriculture products are cassava, soya beans, corn, peanuts, sugar trees and rice. Sub district Slahung is one mountainous and unfertilized area which borders with Distric Pacitan. Its main problem is mass poverty, marked with the threatening health of mothers and babies. This problem has become an acute problem which needs a joined act of multi side organization. This condition is also because of insufficient health facilities for mothers and babies such as the lack number of medical assistants, Posyandu (Joined Health Service), Poskesdes (Village Health Service) and insufficient accessible clean water. Besides, the people’s awareness to utilize those health facilities is still low. The geographical condition which is mountainous and remote from accessible road cause difficulties for the expecting mothers to access those health facilities. In Distric Ponorogo there are 5 hospitals, 31 people health center, 56 small people health center, 43 Moving health service, 9 Mother and Baby Health service, and 11 polyclinics. From the data shown above, it appears that not all health services can be easily accessed by the villagers. With 21 sub districts and 303 villages, Ponorogo only has 31 People Health  Centers and 56 small health centers. So, the ratio is 1-2 health centers and 1-5 small health center for each sub district.

With such condition, some problems appear:

1.        Mother mortality is quiet high, 101.83 deaths each 100,000 fertilities. And also the baby mortality is high; 13.24 deaths each 1,000 fertilities.

2.        High number of bad nutritious babies.

3.        Lack of clean water especially during dry season.

4.        The threat of early unidentified diseases.