Yogyakarta Keeps 30 Percent Of Beds In Hospitals For COVID-19 Patients

Hospital illustration photo via Antara

JAKARTA - The Yogyakarta City COVID-19 Task Force ensures that all referral hospitals for handling COVID-19 maintain their commitment to providing 30 percent of treatment beds for COVID-19 patients in anticipation of the potential increase in cases.

"The agreement to provide 30 percent of bed capacity for handling COVID-19 remains a shared commitment from all referral hospitals in Yogyakarta until now," said Heroe Poerwadi, Head of the Yogyakarta COVID-19 Handling Task Force in Yogyakarta, Monday, December 20.

Hospitals that have shifted the use of beds to treat other patients due to COVID-19 cases in the city of Yogyakarta, which is quite sloping. Currently, the average bed occupancy rate (BOR) for the treatment of COVID-19 patients for both critical care and isolation is only around 3-4 percent.

"The use of patient care beds is getting lower. Therefore, hospitals are diverting the use of these beds to treat other patients," he said.

Heroe ensured that the hospital would quickly increase the number of beds if the number of COVID-19 patients requiring hospital treatment increased again due to the detection of patients exposed to the Omicron variant in Indonesia.

"We continue to see how cases develop in Yogyakarta from day to day. The new variant is rumored to be spreading rapidly but does not increase the severity of the infection," he said.

In addition to the readiness of referral hospitals, Heroe also ensured that two shelters for handling COVID-19 in Yogyakarta City were also ready to accommodate patients, even though one shelter, namely the Bener Flat is currently inactive.

"The shelter in Bener Flats is not equipped with health workers. But at any time it is needed it can be re-operated," he said, as quoted by Antara.

He also asked the region to be prepared to reactivate the self-isolation shelter in the village when there was an increase in cases.

“The potential increase in cases could be due to high mobility. For the city of Yogyakarta, what needs to be anticipated is the increase in tourist arrivals ahead of the year-end holidays," said Heroe.

He also hopes that tourists and all tourism actors will continue to carry out strict health protocols as an effort to prevent potential transmission.

As of Sunday (19/12), there are 38 active cases in Yogyakarta City.