The Bed Capacity For COVID-19 Patients In Jakarta Hospital Is Running Out, 70 Percent Has Been Used

JAKARTA - Head of DKI Health Office Widyastuti said the capacity of isolation beds for COVID-19 patients at referral hospitals is running low.

Currently, 70 percent of the bed capacity is used from 4,456 isolation beds in 67 COVID-19 referral hospitals. In fact, a week ago, the capacity was still 67 percent.

"The capacity of our hospital is now almost 70 percent, both in the isolation room and the intensive care unit (ICU). Indeed, the current condition has increased more than last month," said Widyastuti at the City Hall of DKI, Central Jakarta, Friday, August 28.

This means that DKI only has 10 percent of the 80 percent threshold for hospital bed capacity for COVID-19 set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Widyastuti said the increased bed capacity for COVID-19 patients was due to increasingly massive contact tracing efforts.

In the past week, the DKI Provincial Government has conducted PCR tests on 45,866 people. This figure is 4 times the WHO target every week, in which Jakarta must test at least 10,645 per week.

The increase in test capacity has also led to the percentage of positive cases from the total people examined (positivity rate) for DKI to reach 10.1 percent.

"The point is, we continue to increase the testing capacity to ensure how residents know their status. Starting with confirmed cases, we are tracing. From the tracing results, we know how the pattern of spread is," said Widyastuti.

Therefore, while waiting for the readiness to increase the bed capacity, the DKI Provincial Government is currently carrying out the recruitment process for special health workers for COVID-19 treatment.

"So, when we increase the ICU capacity, not only the tools, cooking tools are there but there are no people. So, we are in the process of increasing the capacity of human resources," he said.