JAKARTA - As many as 100 doctors died from COVID-19. Epidemiologist from Australia's Griffith University, Dicky Budiman, assessed that this is very detrimental to Indonesia, because currently there are not too many doctors.
Quoted from his Twitter account @ Dikot38989316, he said that based on data from the World Bank, currently the number of doctors in Indonesia is the second lowest in Southeast Asia, which is 0.4 doctors per 1,000 population.
"This means that Indonesia only has 4 doctors serving 10,000 residents. Losing 100 doctors = 250,000 residents do not have doctors," said Dicky as quoted from his Twitter account, Tuesday, September 1.
"With the death of medical personnel, investment in Indonesian health human resources will suffer huge losses," he continued.
World Bank data: The number of doctors in Indonesia is the second lowest in Southeast Asia, at 0.4 doctors per 1,000 population. This means that Indonesia only has 4 doctors serving its 10,000 inhabitants. Meaning: losing 100 doctors = 250,000 without having a doctor
- Dicky Budi Man (@ Dikot38989316) August 31, 2020
Furthermore, through voice messages, Dicky assessed that the large number of casualties from the hospital cluster to other clusters was evidence of the government's failure to control the transmission of the COVID-19 virus in the community. This failure can occur if the testing in the community is not carried out massively according to the recommendations of the World Health Organization.
It is known, based on WHO standards, Indonesia should be able to test more than 200 thousand people each week. However, until now, Indonesia has not been able to meet this target and this was agreed by Wiku Adisasmito, Spokesperson for the COVID-19 Handling Task Force some time ago.
Wiku said, overall, Indonesia was only able to meet 35.6 percent of the WHO standard target.
Returning to Dicky, if Indonesia is unable to carry out the tests according to WHO standards and is unable to reduce the positivity rate, the mortality rate will continue to increase.
"Not only the death rate for health workers continues to increase, but also the general health and death rate in the community will increase. Because many people are not detected and this person transmits to high-risk groups in society," said Dicky.
He further explained that the deaths of health workers occurred in many areas where the number of tests was low and the positivity rate was high, such as East Java, North Sumatra, DKI Jakarta, Central Java and West Java.
"If this death is not prevented, mitigated, corrected with coverage of testing, tracing, and protection and support for medical personnel, then the death of these medical personnel will eliminate and reduce the success that the government has conveyed about the cure rate which is considered above average in the world," he said .
"This is an irony that occurs because we do not put in place the main control strategies for the pandemic in the form of testing, tracing and isolation. That should be the mainstay strategy," said Dicky.
Previously, the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) asked the government to try hard to protect health workers from the threat of COVID-19 and not to blame any party.
This was conveyed by the Chairman of PB IDI Daeng M Faqih regarding the continued increase in the number of health workers, especially doctors who died, up to 100 people.
"We should all do our best so that health workers are properly protected without blaming anyone. Because this is a pandemic atmosphere that is all emergency and emergency," said Daeng when contacted by reporters, Monday, August 31.
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