Riau Needs Additional Medical Personnel To Handle COVID-19

Illustration (Photo: Destyan Sujarwoko / Antara)

JAKARTA - The Riau Provincial Government (Pemprov) needs additional medical personnel to deal with COVID-19 because positive cases of the virus have shown an increase of up to an average of 200 cases per day.

"Therefore, in the near future the Riau Provincial Government will open a recruitment for doctors and nurses to fill the needs of hospitals and independent isolation areas prepared by the government," said Governor Riaiu Syamsuar in Pekanbaru, as reported by Antara, Wednesday, September 16.

To meet the shortage of medical personnel, he said, health sector agencies, including hospitals, would recruit themselves, but would still cooperate with IDI and PPNI.

He said it was important that the recruited medical personnel be provided with provision and training.

The training for medical personnel to be recruited, he said, was needed as a number of hospitals responded that they could not work immediately, but had to be given instructions in advance so that they were ready to work according to the procedures for handling COVID-19.

"It is hoped that the medical personnel recruited will be people who are ready to work, and can immediately help efforts to accelerate the handling of COVID-19 in Riau Province," he said.

He also said that there will be further discussions related to medical personnel, such as the Pekanbaru City Government, which also requires around 200 medical personnel.

The Riau Provincial Government has just collected data on the number of related personnel needs from the Arifin Achmad Regional Hospital and the Health Office.

"If at the Health Office later they will serve in facilities outside the hospital but specifically for hospitals, they are given the freedom to recruit doctors and their treatment and the amount needed has not been determined," he said.

He admitted that he had ordered the respective regional apparatus organizations (OPD) to calculate the need for medical personnel.

"I ask for this in the next one or two days, each party prepares the number of medical personnel as needed in relation to isolation services.