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Jakarta health workers start to feel the brunt of Omicron surge
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Emergency hospital: A Jakarta public facility maintenance worker carries a tarpaulin bed to be used to treat COVID-19 patients at the repurposed Nagrak low-cost apartment in Cilincing, North Jakarta, on June 21, 2021. (Antara/M Risyal Hidayat)
H
ealth workers in Jakarta, the country's current epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, are starting to feel the brunt of the Omicron-fueled surge of infections, with hospitalizations climbing and daily new infections surpassing the peak of last year's Delta wave.
Many have contracted the highly contagious Omicron variant themselves, putting more pressure on already understaffed health facilities.
Tri Prayogi, a COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) nurse at Pelni Hospital in West Jakarta, said all 20 beds at Pelni's ICU had been occupied in the past two weeks.
He added that the hospital had taken steps to better prepare itself for a possible Omicron wave by adding more beds, medicines and medical equipment, but ICU workers were still being overwhelmed by the surge of patients because there were simply not enough qualified medical workers to treat the sick.
"We want to add eight more beds but [this would be pointless because] we're short-staffed. Almost 20 percent of my colleagues have also been infected by COVID-19," Tri said on Saturday, which had forced Pelni to hire inexperienced volunteer nurses as a quick fix.
Most of them, however, did not have the skills to operate ICU equipment.
Dimas Dwi Saputro, a pediatrician at the COVID-19 ward at Harapan Kita hospital for women and children, also in West Jakarta, said the number of coronavirus patients at the hospital had matched the figure of last year's second wave.
