Feature: Hospitals overwhelmed in Indonesia as COVID-19 cases surge

by Hayati Nupus JAKARTA, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Rochimawati, a journalist in Jakarta, has contacted 15 hospitals in the Indonesian capital and West Java province to treat her 70-year-old brother who is infected with COVID-19, but has yet to get results. All beds in the hospitals have been fully occupied as the number of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia has been soaring in recent weeks. Several hospitals she directly visited also refused her brother and asked her to wait in long queues. "My brother is having trouble with breathing," Rochimawati told Xinhua on Saturday. Her another brother, along with his wife and children, has to conduct self-isolation at their home in Jakarta. A similar rejection was experienced by Evi Mariani, also a journalist, when her 79-year-old father with heart disease and diabetes as comorbidity had a high fever and coughing as he caught COVID-19 at the end of June. At their home in West Java's capital of Bandung, her younger brother and mother are self-isolating as they tested positive for COVID-19, while Mariani lives in Serpong area, Banten province. Mariani and her family have inquired many hospitals in Bandung and Jakarta, but not a single bed is available for her father. A little hope came when a bed was available at a high-priced private hospital in Cibubur area, East Jakarta, about 150 km from their home, after days of searching, while her father's condition was deteriorating. "When he arrived at an emergency room at the hospital, Papa had lost consciousness. His oxygen saturation was at 50," said Mariani. Within less than 24 hours after being treated by a medical team, her father passed away. On social media such as Twitter and the messaging application Whatsapp, information on people seeking hospitals for their family members contracting COVID-19 is milling about every day, as the number of cases has been surging in recent weeks. A number of hospitals have temporarily closed emergency room services for COVID-19 patients. Some hospitals are treating their patients in parking lots or halls as the rooms inside are full. Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin admitted a virtual press conference on Friday evening that the bed occupancy rates (BORs) in the islands of Java and Bali have exceeded the World Health Organization's safe standard of 60 percent. The BOR in Banten province was recorded at 92 percent, followed by Yogyakarta (91 percent), West Java (87 percent), and Jakarta (85 percent). Therefore, the Indonesian government has converted 40 percent of the total 406,253 beds in hospitals nationwide for COVID-19 patients, from the initial 30 percent. "In Jakarta, we converted Fatmawati, Persahabatan, and Sulianti Saroso hospitals fully for COVID-19 (patients)," added Minister Sadikin. As the number of cases is surging, the beds are only for COVID-19 patients with moderate and severe symptoms, while those with mild symptoms were asked to self-isolate at their homes. There are 11 telemedicine services available for those who are in self-isolation to consult doctors and get free medicines. The telemedicine service trial was launched in Jakarta on July 6. The government has also added thousands of beds to flats and Wisma Haji Pondok Gede (a hajj dormitory in East Jakarta), besides deploying internship doctors and residents to help medical workers who are overwhelmed by the surge in the COVID-19 cases. Based on the whole genome sequencing test, Sadikin explained, it was traced that the Delta variant, which has caused the upsurge in COVID-19 cases in Indonesia, first appeared on Jan. 7, 2021, in a hotel at Soekarno Hatta Airport in Banten province, and on Jan. 8, 2021, in South Sumatra province's capital of Palembang. The highly-infectious mutant virus has spread quickly to other areas in Indonesia from April to June, amid people's euphoria over vaccination and the long holiday of Eid al-Fitr. Irma Hidayati, an initiator of LaporCovid19, a community reporting platform to share information about COVID-19, said the BOR figure should be re-checked due to the fact that people still have difficulty in getting hospital beds for COVID-19 patients. "Our hospital is not only overwhelmed but has collapsed," she said. The additional bed capacity is not enough as the number of new cases detected is increasing with around 38,000 every day. Based on LaporCovid19 searches on Twitter, online news portals, and direct reports from people, since the spike in cases from June to July 2, at least 265 people in 10 provinces died when undergoing self-isolation at homes, seeking medical facilities, or queuing for hospital beds. "We are worried that the actual number is higher because not everyone reports it to LaporCovid-19, social media, or mass media," Hidayati added. Enditem *http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-07/11/c_1310055181.htm