The cell was quiet when they told him. Eighteen years old, stripped of his freedom, and now carrying a diagnosis that would demand lifelong vigilance: Toni had HIV.

He became the first person living with HIV to enter the Juvenile Correctional Facility in Aceh Besar, a distinction that brought not recognition, but layers of fear. As a teenager already separated from family and community, his diagnosis placed him in a position of triple vulnerability: young, incarcerated, and now living with a stigmatised condition that many still misunderstand.

He withdrew. The confidence that might sustain a person through a sentence like his began to erode. In the confined geometry of the facility, Toni’s world grew smaller by the day.

Care Without Distance

Two healthcare workers were assigned to walk alongside him. Cut Eva Afrida, a nurse and HIV officer from the nearby Ingin Jaya Community Health Center, and Dr. Herdianti, known as Anti, who provides daily care to the facility’s residents. They brought something no rulebook can require: genuine presence.

They sat beside him. They listened. They checked the rashes that appeared on his skin as his body adjusted to new medication, and they talked to him not as a patient to be managed, but as a young person trying to find his footing.

“It’s a side effect of the medication. Sometimes there’s a burning sensation, but try not to scratch it,” Dr. Anti told him one afternoon. “We’ll apply an ointment so it doesn’t cause sores.”

Slowly, Toni began to come back to himself. His weight, which was worryingly low when he first arrived, began to return. And so did something harder to measure: a quiet sense that his life still had somewhere to go.

“He was very thin when he first arrived,” Eva said, smiling. “Now he’s doing much better.”

HIV treatment is not something that can be paused and restarted. The antiretroviral medication known as ARVs that Toni takes every day works only when it is taken consistently, on time, without gaps. For someone outside of detention, a missed supply might mean a trip to a pharmacy. For Toni, there is no alternative. He depends entirely on the facility’s health system to make sure his medicine is there when he needs it.

Before 2025, that was not always guaranteed. Medicine stocks arrived inconsistently, and requests for resupply moved slowly through manual paperwork. Eva had found herself in the painful position of telling patients to come back another day, patients whose health could not afford to wait.

“It was difficult to tell patients, ‘Come back tomorrow,’” she said softly, “when they depend so heavily on the medicine.”

Then things changed.

In early 2025, a new digital tool called SMILE (the Monitoring System for Health Logistics Inventory) was introduced across health facilities in Aceh. Built by Indonesia’s Ministry of Health together with UNDP Indonesia, and funded by Gavi and the Global Fund, SMILE allows health workers to see medicine stock levels in real time and send resupply requests immediately when stocks run low. No more paperwork piling up. No more uncertainty.
“With SMILE, I just need to check the application,” Eva said. “If the stock is running low, I immediately submit a request to the District Pharmacy Warehouse. No more patients waiting for their medicine.”

UNDP’s work on SMILE reflects a long-held belief: good health policies only matter when they are backed by systems that work for people. By December 2025, the platform had tracked the delivery of 191 million ARV drugs, 72 million TB medicines, 23.5 million anti-malarials, and 41 million testing kits across Indonesia, supported by funding from Gavi and the Global Fund.

Behind these numbers are families who receive treatment on time, health workers who can do their jobs more effectively, and communities that are better protected. SMILE shows how inclusive human development happens in practice, by making sure essential medicines and services reach everyone who needs them, wherever they live.

A Future Within Reach

Toni noticed the change through the quiet, steady experience of his medication arriving on time, every day, without interruption.

“Being a correctional resident, I thought it would be impossible to receive proper treatment,” he said, recalling those first dark weeks after his diagnosis. He was wrong, and that realization has made all the difference. “The HIV medication I need is always available and on time,” he said. “So my treatment has never been interrupted.”

To the staff at the facility, Toni is no longer defined by his diagnosis. He is a young man with a life ahead of him, taking it one day at a time.

Eva hopes that what has worked for Toni can work for many more. “Hopefully, with the help of this technology, HIV medicines and testing can reach people at risk and be accessed continuously in all health facilities,” she said. “Because everyone in this country, without exception, has the same right to live a healthy life.”

Behind prison walls in Aceh Besar, access to medicine is not merely a matter of logistics. For Toni, it is the chance to keep moving forward, sustaining life and safeguarding his breath, one day at a time.

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Note: Toni is a pseudonym used for privacy.

Writer: Noor Aspasia, Slam Riyadi, and Vidia Darmawi

Editor: Nabilla Rahmani