Gov’t to Add More Hospital Beds in Yogyakarta for COVID-19 Treatment
Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment (Photo by PR of Cabinet Secretariat/Agung).
Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Panjaitan has ordered the provincial government of Special Region of Yogyakarta to increase hospital bed conversion for COVID-19 patients as bed occupancy rate in the provice has exceeded 70 percent.
“Hospital capacity is almost full. Therefore, I order provincial government and municipal governments in Special Region of Yogyakarta to immediately convert non-COVID-19 (treatment) beds into COVID-19 (treatment beds for) hospitals,” he said during a livestreamed coordination meeting on COVID-19 pandemic management acceleration in Yogyakarta province, Thursday (29/07).
Luhut expressed hope that the measure will increase the number of hospital beds by 50 percent so that patients with severe symptoms can be treated in hospitals, adding that to date, only 6.1 percent of COVID-19 patients in Yogyakarta province receive treatment in hospitals, making it the lowest hospital treatment rate in the islands of Java and Bali.
“In general, 20 percent of patients need to be treated in hospitals so the situation in Special Region of Yogyakarta can explain why the mortality rate is high,” he said, while pointing out that only 2,115 out of 34,732 people in the province received treatments in hospitals and the mortality rate in the province has continued to soar since the BOR reached almost 80 percent.
On that occasion, Luhut also ordered the Indonesian National Defense Force and the Indonesian National Police in Yogyakarta province to join hands in improving tracing and testing.
“I hope in the next few days, you (Chief of the Regional Police and Commander of the Military District) can optimally intensify testing and tracing so that self-isolating patients with worsening saturation can be brought to centralized isolation facilities or hospitals,” he remarked.
As for COVID-19 management support in Yogyakarta province, the Central Government, Luhut said, has sent 150 units of oxygen concentrator.
“We just received aids of 10 ISO tanks for oxygen, which will be deployed to Yogyakarta,” he added.
Luhut also appealed to related parties to maintain unity and integrity in tackling the pandemic in Yogyakarta province.
In the meantime, Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin stressed the importance of measuring self-isolating patients’ oxygen saturation, adding that patients with a low saturation must receive treatment in a hospital or a centralized isolation facility.
“I have come to Special Region of Yogyakarta and talked with doctors here. Indeed, many (patients) were admitted when they already had low saturation, so they died,” he said.
Budi also underscored that his Ministry will immediately send oximeters to all community health centers in Yogyakarta province.
“Oximeters are needed to measure saturation, especially that of self-isolating patients so that they will not have treatment delay,” he said.
In the meantime, Head of the National Agency for Disaster Management Ganip Warsito, who also helms the COVID-19 Task Force, stated that his agency has taken two measures to step in in COVID-19 management in Yogyakarta province.
The first measure, he said, is to assign more health care and non-health care workers in the province.
“The task force is in charge of managing centralized isolations, self-isolation, and telemedicine, including coordination with volunteers,” Ganip said.
Ganip also said that his agency is running four centralized isolation facilities, namely the apartment building of Serayu and Opak River Basin Organization, Universitas Gadjah Mada student dormitory, Yogyakarta State University student dormitory, and Medika Respati Hospital. (PR of Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment/UN) (DH/EP)
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