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Unsung heroes: Remembering health workers who lost their battle against COVID-19
The Jakarta Post remembers some of the thousands of health workers who died during the pandemic through the eyes of those who knew them best.
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Hundreds of people are waiting to be tested for COVID-19 at the Pasar Minggu general hospital (RSUD) in South Jakarta, in this file photo taken on March 26, 2020. (Asian Development Bank/Afriadi Hikmal)
T
hree years since Indonesia found its first confirmed case of COVID-19, thousands of health workers have died in the pandemic, having sacrificed their own lives to save the lives of others. The Jakarta Post remembers a handful of them through the eyes of those who knew them best.
Khoirul Anwar, 30, remembers his late wife, Risma Dwi Anisa, as someone who was caring, altruistic and dedicated to her profession as a blood bank nurse.
Khoirul witnessed first-hand how professional and passionate Risma was at her job, as both of them worked at the Surakarta branch of the Indonesia Red Cross (PMI).
“During the height of the Delta [COVID-19 variant] wave in June 2021, demands for convalescent plasma treatment skyrocketed. She refused to take time off despite being seven months pregnant at that time and being overloaded with work, knowing how understaffed we were and how many patients desperately needed the treatment," Khoirul told the Post in a recent interview.
Convalescent plasma therapy is a transfusion of blood plasma, which makes up the blood’s liquid form, from someone who has recovered from COVID-19 to patients who are still contracting the disease.
It was initially believed that antibodies from the plasma might help people recover from COVID-19, lessen the severity and shorten the length of contraction of the disease, but the World Health Organization (WHO) ended up recommending against the use of the treatment in December 2021 due to the lack of scientific evidence.
Risma eventually contracted COVID-19 in late June 2021, in the midst of the Delta-fueled case surge that devastated hospitals across the country. She was not vaccinated, as the Health Ministry had not recommended COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women.
