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JAKARTA (Reuters) – Dr. Sardjono Utomo, a senior Indonesian doctor, was admitted to his local hospital in East Java on Tuesday afternoon.
In just over 24 hours, as his fellow doctors called hospital after hospital looking for a respirator in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city and within a few hours’ drive, the doctor and his wife, Sri Martini, would be dead.
The death of Dr. Sardjono and his wife from COVID-19 has sounded alarms in the fourth most populous nation in the world, where the pandemic has gone from bad to worse and is now putting significant pressure on the ill-equipped healthcare system. from the country.
In the past 10 days, Indonesia has released four daily record numbers, the highest being on December 3 with 8,369 new cases, while local news has made headlines of more regional hospitals reaching full capacity.
“It appears that the current overcapacity situation is the worst it has been during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia,” Halik Malik, spokesman for the Indonesian Medical Association, told Reuters.
Public health experts say Indonesia has struggled since March to control the pandemic – now with 557,877 cases and 17,355 confirmed deaths, plus another nearly 70,000 suspected cases – it has by far the highest number of cases and deaths in Southeast Asia. , and the data shows the situation is escalating.
In Pamekasan, a modest district on the island of Madura bordered by the Java Sea, where Dr. Sardjono worked for years as a hospital director, there is not a respirator in the city.
But when the 67-year-old radiologist arrived at Mohammad Noer Hospital in Pamekasan, he desperately needed one.
“Everything was packed. And everything is packed here in Pamekasan, ”said Dr. Syaiful Hidayat, a pulmonologist who treated Dr. Sardjono. “Now it is reaching its peak.”
Dr. Sardjono’s son-in-law, Arif Rahman, 41, said the deaths of his in-laws highlighted how ill-equipped the nation’s hospitals were to handle the pandemic.
“Fans are important,” he said, “in Pamekasan, which is a reference [area] for other regions, of course, it is unfortunate. And much less in other places like Surabaya, where it is always full ”.
When asked why Dr. Sardjono couldn’t find a fan, Febriadhitya Prajatara, a spokesman for the Surabaya government, said they had tried too late and that the city was not to blame.
The capacity of the city’s ICU, he said, was 66%.
But on Java, the most populous island on the planet, other worrisome signs are emerging.
West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil said Wednesday that the occupancy rate for isolation rooms in Bogor, Depok, Bekasi and Bandung had reached 80%.
In the capital, Jakarta, it is also cause for concern.
LaporCOVID-19, an independent coronavirus data initiative, warned this week that Jakarta’s emergency rooms were veering toward “collapse.”
To help coronavirus patients find hospital beds from November 27 to 29, LaporCOVID-19 contacted the emergency rooms of 69 hospitals and found that 97% were full.
“The overcapacity of ICUs in reference hospitals for COVID-19 in some areas indicates that the government’s handling of the pandemic is not serious at all,” said Irma Hidayana, co-founder of the initiative.
Indonesia’s COVID-19 task force, the National Hospital Association and the Jakarta Health Office have not responded to Reuters questions about the hospital’s current capacity.
However, speaking at a press conference on Thursday, task force spokesperson Wiku Adisasmito said that ICU beds were 57.97% nationally as of December 1. Some 1,315 portable fans had also been distributed to the regions, he said.
But for Dr. Sardjono, one of the more than 180 Indonesian doctors who have died from the virus, that made no difference.
When asked why a senior physician was unable to receive the treatment he needed, Dr. Syaiful said there simply wasn’t enough space.
“Who do you want to kick out?” he asked, “You can’t do that. It shows that COVID is here and that it is real … It can happen to anyone and we will not have enough beds. “
(This story has been resubmitted to correct the spelling of the hospital name to Muhammad Noer’s Mohammad Noer in paragraph 8)
(Written by Kate Lamb; Editing by Michael Perry)
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