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Jakarta Post

Health Ministry says COVID-19 bed capacity still ‘sufficient’ nationwide

News Desk (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Tue, September 1, 2020

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Health Ministry says COVID-19 bed capacity still ‘sufficient’ nationwide Health staff wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) conduct morning exercises with patients suffering mild symptoms of COVID-19 at a temporary hospital in Surabaya on Aug. 17. (AFP/Juni Kriswanto)

D

espite recent reports of overwhelmed COVID-19 hospitals in several regions, the Health Ministry has claimed that the nationwide capacity was still sufficient to accommodate patients.

“The capacity is considered sufficient for the time being, and the bed occupancy rate has only reached 42.3 percent,” the ministry's acting director general of health services, Abdul Kadir said in a virtual discussion on Tuesday, as quoted by kompas.com.

Abdul said the institutions claiming that COVID-19 hospitals had been fully occupied were spreading a hoax. 

He said 839 of 2,900 hospitals in Indonesia were COVID-19 referral hospitals. A total of 132 hospitals were national referral hospitals and the other 707 were regional referral hospitals, he added.

Abdul, however, did not provide a breakdown of the bed occupancy rate in each region.

Read also: Patients occupy over 50% of Jakarta hospital beds

Previously, COVID-19 task force spokesperson Wiku Adisasmito said the bed occupancy rate for COVID-19 hospitals in Jakarta, the epicenter of the country’s coronavirus outbreak, was “no longer ideal”.

He said Jakarta currently had 67 official COVID-19 referral hospitals and 170 hospitals providing services for COVID-19 patients.

However, he added, the occupancy rate for isolation rooms in Jakarta had reached 69 percent and that for intensive care unit (ICU) beds had reached 77 percent. 

“This is not an ideal situation,” Wiku said on Monday.

Wiku said the rate should drop to 60 percent to reduce the burden on healthcare workers.

“Patients with moderate and mild symptoms would be transferred to the Wisma Atlet Kemayoran [emergency COVID-19 hospital in Central Jakarta],” he said.

Read also: Restriction relaxation leads to increase in Depok household clusters

In Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, the number of patients has reportedly exceeded the isolation room capacity of eight hospitals in the city. 

“I ask for understanding from the public, as the number of people being treated has exceeded the capacity of the hospitals,” Balikpapan Mayor Rizal Effendi said in a press conference on Monday, as broadcasted by KompasTV.

Rizal said there were 221 cases currently under treatment at eight hospitals in Balikpapan. 

“Our hospitals have only 212 [isolation rooms]. So, you can imagine that,” said Rizal.

Due to the limitation, Rizal said, the hospitals would be more “selective” in accepting COVID-19 patients.

As of Monday, 1,814 cases in COVID-19 infection have been confirmed in Balikpapan, with 1,069 people having recovered and 126 having died, while another 398 patients are undergoing self-isolation at home. 

Nationwide, Indonesia reported 2,775 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, bringing the total tally to 177,571. (syk)

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