REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, MINA — Tiap tahun, ratusan tukang cukur paruh waktu tanpa izin resmi membanjiri kota suci Mina. Mereka tumpah ruah untuk melakukan ritual haji terakhir, yakni mencukur rambut jamaah haji.

“Saya mencukur rambut karena ini adalah perintah Nabi Muhammad. Saat ini udara sangat panas, jadi mencukur rambut bukan gagasan yang buruk,” ujar jamaah haji asal Yaman Mohamed Hassan saat akan dicukur dengan menggunakan pisau.

Sambil mengusap darah yang mengalir di kepalanya dengan tangan, Hassan mengatakan Allah akan melindungi dirinya dan jamaah haji lain.

Para tukang cukur ini menggunakan pisau cukur yang sama bagi puluhan jamaah haji. Hal ini menjadikan praktik mereka sangat berisiko dalam penyebaran penyakit di antara dua juta orang yang berhaji tahun ini.

Praktik mencukur seperti ini yang coba dihentikan kementerian kesehatan Arab Saudi selama bertahun-tahun. Para tukang cukur mampu menghindari aparat dengan mengatakan mereka adalah kerabat kliennya dan mengaku tidak menerima upah mencukur.

Tahun ini, pihak berwenang memasang iklan besar-besaran di televisi dan radio berisi peringatan mengenai potensi bahaya kesehatan mencukur rambut sembarangan. Mereka juga membawa tukang cukur berlisensi dari seluruh negeri ke Mina. Selain itu, mereka juga memasang poster, seperti biasa.

Hal ini bukannya tanpa hambatan. Pemilik salon berlisensi di Mina mengatakan para jamaah haji memiliki dana yang terbatas. Sedikitnya 60 persen jamaah haji mempercayakan pencukuran rambut mereka kepada tukang cukur tidak resmi atau mencukur rambut mereka sendiri.

“Saya tidak mampu membayar apapun melebihi 10 saudi riyal (2,7 dolar AS). Tukang cukur yang direkomendasikan pemerintah harganya mahal,” ujar seorang pekerja pabrik dari Mesir, Salam Assem, seperti dikutip dari Reuters, Rabu (16/10).

Pejabat kementerian kesehatan mengatakan sulit mengetahui berapa banyak jamaah yang tertular penyakit akibat pemakaian pisau cukur yang sama. Sebabnya, jamaah kembali ke negara masing-masing. Hal ini menyulitkan pengumpulan data dan koordinasi. Namun, kekhawatiran penularan penyakit sangat nyata.

“Berbagi pakai penggunaan pisau cukur sangat berbahaya. Melalui luka terbuka, virus seperti HIV, hepatitis B dan C dan malaria bisa menular dari satu orang ke orang lain. Bahkan melalui tangan yang kotor bisa tertular kudis dan infeksi kulit lainnya,” kata doketr di sebuah rumah sakit di Mina Amin al-Mahdi.

Sebuah penelitian pada 2008 yang diterbitkan dalam Jurnal Infeksi dan Kesehatan Publik terdapat daftar panjang penyebab tekanan ekstrem, misalnya udara panas, sengatan matahari, rasa haus, padatnya orang, kepadatan lalu lintas, licinnya jalanan dan jalan yang tidak rata.
 

Sumber : http://www.jurnalhaji.com

Baca Artikel Lainnya : CALON HAJI DAN UMRAH DI PERBOLEHKAN MEMBAWA UANG

From sea to shining sea, or at least from one side of the Hudson to the other, politicians you have barely heard of are being accused of wrongdoing. There were so many court proceedings involving public officials on Monday that it was hard to keep up.

In Newark, two underlings of Gov. Chris Christie were arraigned on charges that they were in on the truly deranged plot to block traffic leading onto the George Washington Bridge.

Ten miles away, in Lower Manhattan, Dean G. Skelos, the leader of the New York State Senate, and his son, Adam B. Skelos, were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on accusations of far more conventional political larceny, involving a job with a sewer company for the son and commissions on title insurance and bond work.

The younger man managed to receive a 150 percent pay increase from the sewer company even though, as he said on tape, he “literally knew nothing about water or, you know, any of that stuff,” according to a criminal complaint the United States attorney’s office filed.

The success of Adam Skelos, 32, was attributed by prosecutors to his father’s influence as the leader of the Senate and as a potentate among state Republicans. The indictment can also be read as one of those unfailingly sad tales of a father who cannot stop indulging a grown son. The senator himself is not alleged to have profited from the schemes, except by being relieved of the burden of underwriting Adam.

The bridge traffic caper is its own species of crazy; what distinguishes the charges against the two Skeloses is the apparent absence of a survival instinct. It is one thing not to know anything about water or that stuff. More remarkable, if true, is the fact that the sewer machinations continued even after the former New York Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, was charged in January with taking bribes disguised as fees.

It was by then common gossip in political and news media circles that Senator Skelos, a Republican, the counterpart in the Senate to Mr. Silver, a Democrat, in the Assembly, could be next in line for the criminal dock. “Stay tuned,” the United States attorney, Preet Bharara said, leaving not much to the imagination.

Even though the cat had been unmistakably belled, Skelos father and son continued to talk about how to advance the interests of the sewer company, though the son did begin to use a burner cellphone, the kind people pay for in cash, with no traceable contracts.

That was indeed prudent, as prosecutors had been wiretapping the cellphones of both men. But it would seem that the burner was of limited value, because by then the prosecutors had managed to secure the help of a business executive who agreed to record calls with the Skeloses. It would further seem that the business executive was more attentive to the perils of pending investigations than the politician.

Through the end of the New York State budget negotiations in March, the hopes of the younger Skelos rested on his father’s ability to devise legislation that would benefit the sewer company. That did not pan out. But Senator Skelos did boast that he had haggled with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, in a successful effort to raise a $150 million allocation for Long Island to $550 million, for what the budget called “transformative economic development projects.” It included money for the kind of work done by the sewer company.

The lawyer for Adam Skelos said he was not guilty and would win in court. Senator Skelos issued a ringing declaration that he was unequivocally innocent.

THIS was also the approach taken in New Jersey by Bill Baroni, a man of great presence and eloquence who stopped outside the federal courthouse to note that he had taken risks as a Republican by bucking his party to support paid family leave, medical marijuana and marriage equality. “I would never risk my career, my job, my reputation for something like this,” Mr. Baroni said. “I am an innocent man.”

The lawyer for his co-defendant, Bridget Anne Kelly, the former deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, a Republican, said that she would strongly rebut the charges.

Perhaps they had nothing to do with the lane closings. But neither Mr. Baroni nor Ms. Kelly addressed the question of why they did not return repeated calls from the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., begging them to stop the traffic tie-ups, over three days.

That silence was a low moment. But perhaps New York hit bottom faster. Senator Skelos, the prosecutors charged, arranged to meet Long Island politicians at the wake of Wenjian Liu, a New York City police officer shot dead in December, to press for payments to the company employing his son.

Sometimes it seems as though for some people, the only thing to be ashamed of is shame itself.