Dewi Safitri, 17, went to several hospitals in Jakarta to seek treatment for her mother, whose legs had been injured in a recent accident. All the hospitals she visited said they could not treat her mother, primarily because they were already full because of COVID-19.

“We went to around five hospitals on June 26, all of which rejected [to treat] my mother because they were at full capacity with COVID-19 patients” Dewi told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday, adding that after failing to get care for her mother, she had to treat her mother's injury at home.

It was a similar story for Yanti Agustina, 39, who struggled to get her father treated at a hospital after he suffered a third stroke last month.

To make matters worse, the deteriorating COVID-19 situation had spooked her father such that he refused to go to the hospital to get any treatment.

Two weeks ago, Yanti finally managed to get a doctor's appointment for her 69-year-old father, but his condition had deteriorated and she could do little to help him, especially after a close relative who lives in a nearby town died of COVID-19.

“I am at my wit’s end, his condition is so bad, yet there is little we can do,” she told the Post over the phone on Tuesday. “If it wasn't for COVID, he could easily have been taken care of.”

University of Indonesia epidemiologist Tri Yunis Miko Wahyono said stories of non-COVID-19 patients being denied treatment from hospitals illustrated the true scale of the pandemic, with hospitals even having to make space in their emergency units to treat COVID-19 patients.

“Hospitals need to make space for COVID-19 patients in their emergency units, maybe that is why the non-COVID-19 patients, whether it is an emergency or not, are being neglected,” Tri said.

The country’s healthcare system is buckling under the pressure of soaring cases, driven by the more transmissible Delta variant and a lack of strong mobility restrictions during the Idul Fitri holiday period.

Read also: Darkest days ahead: Deaths surge in Indonesia as healthcare facilities collapse

Confirmed COVID-19 cases climbed to a record daily high of 47,899 on Tuesday, while 864 people died from the disease that day, according to government data. More than 2.6 million people in the country have tested positive for the coronavirus.

The figures, however, are deemed to be a conservative estimate due to a lack of adequate testing efforts outside of Jakarta.

Indonesian Hospital Association (PERSI) secretary-general Lia Gardenia Pratakusuma said capacity to treat non-COVID-19 patients varied between different hospitals, highlighting that even the COVID-19 referral hospital Fatmawati Central General Hospital (RSU Fatmawati) in South Jakarta could still provide treatment for emergency cases outside of COVID-19.

“What often happens is that hospitals reject [non-COVID-19 patients] because they have a small capacity and cannot treat more patients,” Lia said.

Read also: 'Like a war zone': Doctors, hospitals, plead for help amid COVID-19 upsurge

The Health Ministry’s director of referral healthcare services, Rita Rogayah, said the government had instructed hospitals to ensure that non-coronavirus patients also got adequate treatment, adding that it could allocate more funds under the government’s specific-purpose grants (DAK) to increase the capacity of regional hospitals across the country to treat non-COVID-19 patients.

“Hospitals are still accepting non-COVID-19 inpatients, if there is any need for extra facilities, we need to receive reports from said hospitals, and then we can disburse the facilities,” said Rita.

She did not immediately respond to the Post’s follow-up questions on hospitals that have refused to take in non-COVID-19 patients.

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