Indonesia’s health care system is not the best in the world, and given the country’s widespread poverty and traditions of mysticism, it is perhaps unsurprising that some are turning to “alternative treatments.” From medicalxpress.com:
(AP) — Ignoring the red-and-white danger sign, Sri Mulyati walks slowly to the train tracks outside Indonesia’s bustling capital, lies down and stretches her body across the rails.
Like the nearly dozen others lined up along the track, the 50-year-old diabetes patient has all but given up on doctors and can’t afford the expensive medicines they prescribe.
In her mind, she has only one option left: electric therapy.
[…]She turned to train track therapy last year after hearing a rumor about an ethnic Chinese man who was partially paralyzed by a stroke going to the tracks to kill himself, but instead finding himself cured.It’s a story that’s been told and retold in Indonesia.
Until recently, more than 50 people would show up at the Rawa Buaya tracks every day. But the numbers have dropped since police and the state-run railroad company erected a warning sign and threatened penalties of up to three months in prison or fines of $1,800.
No one has been arrested yet, and none of the participants in train track therapy has died.
You can read the whole story here.
