Dr Soetomo Hospital Surabaya Help Handle Bangkalan Hospital Patients Closed Due To COVID-19 Spike

SURABAYA - Regional General Hospital (RSUD) Dr Soetomo Surabaya is ready to help Syarifah Ambami Rato Embu Bangkalan Hospital which is temporarily closed, due to the surge in COVID-19 cases in Bangkalan Madura.

In addition to the high number of COVID-19 cases, the closure was carried out because several health workers were currently exposed.

"So let's help Bangkalan together, there should be no problems. We have coordinated with the Bangkalan Regional Hospital, what tools have been delivered, God willing, we can get help from the Ministry of Health and we will help with medicine," said Director of RSUD Dr Soetomo, Joni Wahyuhadi, confirmed, Monday , June 7th.

Joni admitted that he had coordinated with the East Java Health Office (Dinkes) and Bangkalan Hospital to help treat COVID-19 patients. In addition to sending medical equipment, they also sent medical personnel and others.

"Then we also send management for handling COVID-19, including Dr Soetomo's PCR car, we have sent there for tracing, later we will formulate appropriate policies for Bangkalan," he said.

Joni said the number of COVID-19 patients in Surabaya, especially those at the Dr Soetomo Hospital, was very low. At Dr Soetomo Hospital there are currently a total of 38 patients out of 250 available capacities.

"Our ICU is now filled with five patients, there are two patients from Bangkalan who we are also treating in the ICU and some are being treated in other rooms. Then, we have simplified the mechanism, if there are patients who are heavy from Bangkalan they can be referred to Soetomo. We already have a special group mutual communication helps Bangkalan," he said.

In addition, the team will take patient samples from Bangkalan for whole genome sequencing to examine the presence or absence of new variants of COVID-19.

Previously, the President Director of the Syarifah Ambami Hospital Rato Embu, Dr. Nunuk Kristen, through his official letter to the Bangkalan Regent, asked to temporarily close the emergency room services for three days starting from June 5-8.

The closure of the emergency room service was carried out to protect the existing health workers. This is because in recent times there has been an increase in COVID-19 cases which have also been experienced by several health workers.