The Compliance Of West Sumatra Residents In Implementing Health Protocols Is Low

Illustration (Photo: Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - Expert Staff to the Minister of Health, Andani Eka Putra, assessed that the compliance of West Sumatrans in implementing health protocols was very low.

"In fact, in handling the pandemic, prevention upstream by implementing health protocols is much better than downstream in the form of handling patients who have been exposed in the hospital," he said in Padang, as reported by Antara, Thursday, August 19.

He conveyed this at a sharing session on the Control of the COVID-19 Pandemic in West Sumatra organized by the Ombudsman representative of West Sumatra online.

According to the Head of the Diagnostic and Integrated Research Laboratory for Medical Infectious Diseases, Andalas University, the low implementation of health protocols is evident in public places ranging from tourist attractions, shopping centers, restaurants, restaurants and markets to places of worship, none of which carry out health procedures.

"Including people who carry out daily activities outside government offices, none of them carry out health protocols properly, both can be seen in the eyes," he said.

In fact, according to him, compliance with the implementation of health protocols is the first key to controlling the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Therefore, it is necessary to build public education and understanding about the importance of implementing this health protocol," he said.

In addition to highlighting the implementation of the health protocol in West Sumatra, he also assessed that tracing or tracing the contact history of positive COVID-19 patients was also not optimal.

"Our tracking is not going well, except in Padang which is quite good because most of the testing is in Padang," he said. In addition, he also assessed that there are not many isolation places provided, both in the nagari to the newest isolation place.

"Almost most of the COVID-19 patients are self-isolating at home and they are prone to infecting other family members so that new cases increase," he said.

He admits that self-isolation at home is cheap, but the risks are big and the consequences are also big because based on existing data, far more people die at home than in the hospital.

Andani hopes that the regional government should be more proactive in responding to this because there is no point in crying over the condition of the regional head at the hospital, but not controlling it upstream by tightening health protocols.

"Start handling the pandemic from upstream so that the burden on hospitals is reduced," he advised.

The low compliance with the implementation of health protocols in West Sumatra was confirmed through a survey by the Central Statistics Agency of West Sumatra regarding community behavior during the Implementation of Community Activity Restrictions (PPKM), which found that people with low education tended to ignore health protocols.

"From 3,789 respondents surveyed on July 13-20 2021, it was revealed that people with higher education are more obedient in implementing health protocols," said Head of the West Sumatra BPS Herum Fajarwati.

According to him, based on the findings of people with high school education and below, only 69.6 percent want to wear a one-layer mask, 24.9 percent wear a two-layer mask, wash their hands 49 percent, keep a distance of 44.3 percent and avoid crowds 54 percent.

Meanwhile, 83.8 percent of residents with a college education wear a single-layer mask, 30.1 percent wear a two-layer mask, wash hands 63.2 percent, maintain a distance of 54.3 percent and avoid crowds 69.4 percent.

In addition, the survey revealed that respondents with high education rate that people in their environment often do not comply with health protocols.

However, there is one positive thing when you see people around you don't follow the health protocols, as much as 66.2 percent or almost half say they don't like it and only 1.8 percent don't care.

Then when they found violators of health protocols, 63.1 percent of people immediately reprimanded them and 26.3 percent let them.