Desperate Indonesians risk lives for railway "track therapy"

Editor's Note: The following piece comes from Global Post, which provides excellent coverage of world news - important, moving and odd.

And you thought the U.S. health system was in a mess.

Imagine living in a country where hospitals and doctors are so bad you would actually prefer to lie on a train track in the hope the electrical current will cure your ills.

That's the reality in Indonesia, a Southeast Asian archipelago where about 110 million people, or just under half the population, live on or under $2 a day.

"Track therapy" involves lying perpendicular to the steel tracks with one's head and feet forming the circuit, the Jakarta Post newspaper reported.

"If your body aches, have it cured here. Try it, it doesn’t hurt," 67-year-old Kusmiati told reporters, ignoring railway workers' announcements to stay off the tracks.

"If so, then how come someone managed to heal his stroke here?" asked another woman lying alongside Kusmiati.

Staff at Rawa Buaya train station in west Jakarta were not amused. "Go cook for your husband, dress up before he comes home. This doesn’t cure anything; this is dangerous for your heart," said one, to no avail.

Diabetes sufferer Sri, 50, said she had tried "proper medication" with no results.

"I have wasted all my money ... Now I prefer coming here, because it is free. If they want us to stop, they should pay more attention to poor people like us," she said.

A doctor told The Post the "therapy" had no scientific backing. In addition to the danger of being hit by a passing train, "track therapy" gave electric shocks that could damage vital organs including the heart and brain, he said.