Army Chief Of Staff, General Andika Perkasa, Encourages Medical Staff At Wijayakusuma Army Hospital Purwokerto

KSAD General TNI Andika Perkasa encourages medical personnel, especially those who treat COVID-19 patients at the Wijayakusuma Army Hospital (RST), Purwokerto/PHOTO VIA ANTARA

PURWOKERTO - Army Chief of Staff (KSAD), General TNI Andika Perkasa, encouraged medical personnel, especially those treating COVID-19 patients at the Wijayakusuma Army Hospital, Purwokerto, Central Java.

When visiting Wijayakusuma Army Hospital, Andika accompanied by his wife, Hetty Andika Perkasa, had a video conference dialogue with medical personnel who were on duty in the isolation room as well as the intensive care unit and medical personnel.

Before ending the dialogue, Andika advised the medical personnel to remain enthusiastic. "Don't forget to take care of your health", he said, quoted by Antara, Thursday, July 29.

The Army Chief of Staff also gave gifts to medical personnel at Wijayakusuma Army Hospital.

To reporters, Andika said that in the past month there has been a wave of increasing cases of COVID-19 transmission, which has forced medical personnel at Army hospitals to work hard.

"The Army has 95 hospitals throughout Indonesia. Coincidentally, apart from the increasing number of patients, many medical personnel are also affected by COVID-19", he said.

"Every two days we are escorted and managed throughout Indonesia because if it is managed by the Diponegoro Military Command, in Central Java, it is still difficult because sometimes, like here, the bed occupancy rate for the ICU is 100 percent, although, for the bed occupancy rate (BOR) is isolated, the COVID-19 treatment is still 65 percent, but we can do it, not to mention how many queues are there in the Emergency Room", he continued.

General Andika said the Indonesian Army had transferred general practitioners to hospitals with heavy loads and arranged the supply of medicines and oxygen to meet hospital needs.

In addition, he said, Army trucks were assigned to hospitals to support oxygen refilling so that medical personnel could focus on treating patients.

"Today, actually since last Saturday, July 24, I went to Central Java, toured hospitals around Central Java, while bringing some souvenirs to increase their immunity, then increase their protein, yes, a little help from us in Jakarta. That's the goal", continued Andika.

He said, based on data on average every two days there were about 20 percent of medical personnel in the Indonesian Army environment who were affected by COVID-19.

"This is just a hypothesis, for example, 100 health workers, if 20 get infected, the remaining 80. But this 80 can't be for all COVID-19 because this hospital must also continue to operate to serve non-COVID-19 patients, because that's the case, so it's getting less and less", he said.