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Self-isolation patients scramble for help amid Indonesia’s second COVID-19 wave
As hospitals across the country are overwhelmed with new COVID-19 patients, people undergoing self-isolation struggle getting treatment, medication and daily necessities.
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Customers wait in line to refill oxygen tanks in Manggarai, Central Jakarta on June 28, 2021. The demand for oxygen refills is increasing amid the COVID-19 case surge in Indonesia in recent weeks. (Antara/Asprilla Dwi Adha)
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OVID-19 patients undergoing self-isolation are facing difficulties accessing the necessary medical resources and treatment as they are receiving little to no assistance from health authorities already overwhelmed with hundreds of thousands of other patients.
On June 24, Dwi Fahmi took his father Kamsari to Hermina Hospital in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta as he needed a dialysis procedure. But Kamsari had a slight fever that day, prompting the doctor to advise him to go home and wait to get better.
When the fever lasted for three days, doctors advised Kamsari to take a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. Unfortunately, the result came back positive the following day.
“My father was five days late for his dialysis, but he tested positive. The emergency unit of the hospital was full. When we got there, we saw six patients who had been waiting at the hospital for days for a bed and treatment,” Dwi told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
Since Kamsari needed his dialysis procedure immediately, Dwi scrambled to find any hospital that could provide it. He later found a Pertamina hospital in Simprug, South Jakarta was ready to provide dialysis for COVID-19 patients on June 29.
But the hospital had no available beds for new COVID-19 patients, forcing Dwi and Kamsari to go into self-isolation in their house afterward.
Read also: As cases swell in Indonesia, self-isolation is a luxury not everyone can afford
