JAKARTA - Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said the number of beds for treating COVID-19 patients must be increased to 36 thousand units from 15 thousand units by the end of January 2021.
"This is a problem we will face this week, next week until the end of January or early February 2021," Budi said in a press teleconference at the Presidential Office, quoted by Antara, Monday, January 11.
One of the causes of the surge in positive COVID-19 patients is the large number of people who did not comply with health protocols during the long holiday at the end of 2020.
Budi said that a simple calculation to determine the number of beds for COVID-19 patients is 30 percent of the total active cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia. At present, the total active cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia have reached 120 thousand, whereas in November 2020 there were 50 thousand active cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia.
"Now we need 36,000, which is 30 percent of the 120,000. So in one month we have to increase the number of beds for COVID-19 patients from 15,000 to 36,000, "he said.
The Ministry of Health, he said, has appealed to all hospitals to increase the number of reallocated beds for COVID-19 patients.
Budi found problems in the field because many hospitals only allocate a small number of their treatment rooms for COVID-19 patients.
Budi asked hospital leaders to increase bed capacity for COVID-19 patients.
"This is the fastest way to increase the number of rooms, anticipating tens of thousands of new patients who will enter, I ask all the Managing Directors of the Hospital, all hospital owners please convert their beds that were not for COVID-19 into COVID-19, which was previously only 10 percent becomes 30 percent or 40 percent temporarily while we can face a surge that requires tens of thousands of new beds, ”he said.
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