Ministry Of Health Must Admit Hospitals In Jakarta And Surrounding Areas Collapsed To Handle COVID-19

JAKARTA - The Greater Jakarta Ombudsman firmly said that the situation of hospitals in Jakarta and its surroundings in handling COVID-19 patients was not only overcapacity, but also out of control. This must be recognized by the Ministry of Health.

This statement was made by the Head of the Greater Jakarta Ombudsman Representative, Teguh Nugroho, after his agency monitored hospital services in Jakarta from late June 2021 to early July 2021.

"The hospital situation in Greater Jakarta is not only overcapacity, but overcapacity that is not handled and has caused the collapse of health care services for both COVID-19 critical patients and non-COVID critical patients," said Teguh on Thursday, July 8.

Since June 21, 2021, Teguh admitted that the Ombudsman has continued to receive reports and consultations from families of critical COVID-19 patients who are having difficulty getting isolation room services in Bogor, Bekasi, Depok and Jakarta.

Teguh said, BOR and ICU in all regions have reached 90 percent, far above the WHO standard of 60 percent.

Meanwhile, the queue to enter the ER before entering the Isolation Room and ICU every week increased from 10-15 queues at the end of June to an average of 20-40 queues in early July.

This was further confirmed when the Ombudsman asked for written information from several Health Offices in the Greater Jakarta area and cross-checked the data in the Siranap of the Regency and City of Bogor by direct checking. As a result, the data is different from the actual condition.

"In the Siranap application, although there are still hospitals that have beds in the ER, when checked, the data is invalid. The ER beds are full and followed by a long queue of patients," explained Teguh.

Not to mention, the death data for COVID-19 cases continues to increase. For example, in Jakarta there was an increase in 1,677 deaths in just two weeks. Then, more and more health workers are also exposed to COVID-19.

“This figure is the tip of the iceberg. The number of critical COVID-19 patients who are not being treated in hospitals and non-COVID patients who are also not being treated due to the full size of hospitals," said Teguh.

Therefore, Teguh asked the Ministry of Health to coordinate with local governments to immediately accelerate the addition of centralized isolation locations for COVID-19 patients with mild and moderate symptoms who are unable to self-isolate at home.

"The program must be accelerated immediately considering the need for rooms and health workers in some areas is already very high because with a bed conversion of 30-40 percent it has the potential to reduce the number of non-COVID patient services, which are also not small," he concluded.