No Longer At The Hotel, Now 151 Health Workers Handling COVID-19 Are Staying At The Wisma Jakarta Islamic Center

Health workers at JIC (Photo: VOI/Ho-Humas CIJ)

JAKARTA - A total of 151 health workers who treat COVID-19 patients received accommodation at the Wisma Jakarta Islamic Center (JIC), North Jakarta. Previously, they got free accommodation in the hotel provided.

Head of the JIC Secretariat, Ahmad Juhandi, said that the location of the health workers' accommodation was carried out based on Governor's Decree No. 675 of 2021.

"The Jakarta Islamic Center has the task of being an accommodation place for volunteer health workers who work in several hospitals belonging to the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government", said Ahmad in his statement, Wednesday, June 9.

The health workers who received accommodation at Wisma JIC came from health workers who worked at Koja Hospital, Tarakan Hospital, Tugu Koja Hospital, Regional Health Laboratory, and Pademangan Hospital.

These health workers' volunteers come from various regions throughout Indonesia. Some came from Medan, Palembang, Surabaya, Bandung, and other areas in Indonesia.

A health worker who did not want to be named said that they received several lodging support facilities while at the JIC guesthouse.

"We are health workers volunteers consisting of doctors, nurses, laboratory workers, pharmacists. The facilities provided to us are incentives, lodging, meals three times a day, shuttle, insurance. But our work has a big risk because we are dealing directly with patients who are exposed to COVID-19", he said.

For information, the central government has stopped financing COVID-19 patient isolation facilities at hotels, inns, and guesthouses in Jakarta. Not only that, the cost of lodging for health workers who handle COVID-19 is also similar.

Previously, the cost of lodging and the needs of isolated patients and lodging for health workers were borne by the central government.

Therefore, DKI Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan has set several new isolation locations. This is stated in the Governor's Decree Number 675 of 2021.

The Governor's Decree, which was signed on May 31, 2021, revoked the Governor's Decree No. 979 of 2020 regarding controlled isolation locations for previous COVID-19 patients.

"With the policy of the National COVID-19 Handling Task Force regarding the termination of financing for hotels, lodging, and guesthouses for confirmed COVID-19 people, both asymptomatic and with mild symptoms, and lodging costs for health workers handling COVID-19 and guaranteeing legal certainty in fulfilling the need for controlled isolation facilities and lodging for health workers, the Governor's Decree Number 979 of 2020 needs to be changed", Anies said.

Currently, there are thousands of isolation beds and lodging for health workers provided by Anies. These locations are in hotels, guesthouses, flats, sports halls, mosques, and schools.