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Bekasi only has nine ICU beds left amid increasing COVID-19 cases: Association
As of Wednesday, Bekasi has 118 active cases, with 1,149 recoveries and 71 deaths.
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Health workers check medical equipment in the emergency hospital for COVID-19 patients in the Kemayoran athletes village in Central Jakarta on March 23. (Kompas/Pool/Heru Sri Kumoro)
B
ekasi, West Java is running out of available ICU facilities in its COVID-19 referral hospitals, an association has said, raising concerns amid the increasing number of coronavirus cases.
Eko Nugroho, the head of Bekasi Private Hospital Association, said 48 out of 57 ICU beds in the city were occupied as of Tuesday as the number of COVID-19 patients who needed intensive care, including those who required ventilators, kept fluctuating.
“The risk of death will be high because hospitals will struggle to treat COVID-19 patients that require care in the ICU,” Eko said as quoted by kompas.com on Wednesday.
He further called for the Bekasi administration to increase the number of intensive care facilities in the city.
ICU facilities were commonly used to treat coronavirus patients with severe symptoms or those with comorbidity factors, as well as those with dangerously low oxygen levels in their blood despite experiencing no usual symptoms of the disease, which medical workers have dubbed “happy hypoxia”, Eko said.
Aside from ICUs, he said the city was also running low on space at isolation centers, with 426 out of 550 units in use as of Tuesday to treat coronavirus patients with mild to moderate symptoms.
Bekasi city has seen a rise in its incidence rate since early September.
On Tuesday, Bekasi city reported 115 new infections, bringing the total to 1,338 cases. As of Wednesday, the city has 118 active cases, with 1,149 recoveries and 71 deaths.
Mayor Rahmat Effendi said he would soon enforce a curfew in Bekasi, ordering all businesses to close by 8 p.m. and limiting evening activities, to reduce the number of transmissions, following in the footsteps of neighboring Depok and Bogor, which have enforced similar policy amid an increase in COVID-19 cases. (mfp)
