Oxygen Supply Is Not Available, Al Islam Hospital Bandung Does Not Accept Patients With Shortness Of Breath

JAKARTA - Al Islam Hospital Bandung does not accept patients with complaints of shortness of breath at this time until some time in the future. This policy was taken because the supply of oxygen cylinders was running low at a time of soaring COVID-19 patients.

Furthermore, the hospital will conduct an evaluation on July 7 regarding the policy.

This information was announced by the hospital through the official social media account of Al Islam Hospital, @rsalislambandung.

"Announcement. Due to the unavailability of oxygen supply, we are temporarily unable to accept patients with complaints of shortness of breath and we will evaluate them until July 7, 2021," wrote the statement on the Instagram account @rsalislambandung.

Meanwhile, there are some tips for shortness of breath when doing self-isolation at home. A lung specialist from the Jakarta Persahabatan Hospital, Dr. Praseno Hadi Sp.P, said sleeping on the stomach or proning position could be therapy for COVID-19 patients who experience shortness of breath while self-isolating at home.

"The trick we can do for patients who are short of breath, don't have oxygen at home, one way is to try to sleep on their stomach periodically for 30 minutes or 60 minutes which is repeated," said Praseno who is also a lung consultant KIC Department of Pulmonology and Respiratory Medicine FKUI on Emergency PPKM daily press conference monitored online in Jakarta, reported by Antara, Sunday, July 4.

He said the purpose of this position is for the distribution of oxygen in the lungs to be more even. "If the patient is unable to sleep on his stomach, he can sleep on his right or left side," he added.

Shortness of breath is one of the typical signs experienced by COVID-19 patients because they experience a lack of oxygen due to excessive lung infections. Therefore the need for oxygen becomes important.

While the current conditions, people are queuing everywhere looking for oxygen even oxygen is becoming expensive and scarce. Likewise, many hospitals experience a lack of oxygen.

In addition to sleeping on the stomach, according to Dr. Praseno, it is also important to have an oximeter to detect the saturation or oxygen level in a person's blood.

"It would be nice for the patient or family to have a pulse oximetry device to measure oxygen saturation if it's less than 90 then immediately give oxygen or sleep on his stomach or sideways, if it doesn't work, like it or not should be referred to the hospital," he said.