After Active Cases Slope, It's Time To Focus On Serving Non-Covid-19 Patients Again

Photo by Frederic Köberl on Unsplash

JAKARTA - There is good news behind the increasing trend of active cases nationally. Now non-COVID-19 patients are starting to come to the hospital to continue the treatment process.

This good news was conveyed by the Indonesian Vertical Hospital Association (ARVI). They said the increasingly sloping COVID-19 pandemic in the country prompted non-COVID-19 patients to come to hospitals (RS) to continue their delayed treatment process.

"Nowadays, non-COVID-19 or essential services are starting to arrive, because they have had access to the hospital for one year hampered", said ARVI Chair, Dr. Lies Dina Liastuti, SpJP(K)​​​​​​, MARS, in a meeting Hearing (RDP) which was followed from the YouTube channel of the House of Representatives Commission IX in Jakarta, Thursday 23 September.

She said vertical hospital managers in Indonesia were faced with the problem of converting patient care beds which were previously dominated by the process of isolating COVID-19 patients.

"We are converting the beds carefully because we must also continue to serve non-COVID-19 patients, besides we are also ready for COVID-19 patients if they still exist", she said, quoted from Antara.

She explained that there are currently 35 vertical hospitals in Indonesia spread across various regions. All of them serve COVID-19 patients from March 2020 until now.

According to Dr. Lies Dina Liastuti, who is also the President Director of Dr. Cipto Mangunkusumo National Central General Hospital (RSUPN) Jakarta, there have been a total of 14,850 units, 40 percent of which have been converted to COVID-19 services.

During the pandemic, she said, the vertical hospital had treated around 76,196 confirmed cases. That number does not include suspected or probable patients in the early days.

The highest isolation bed occupancy rate took place when COVID-19 peaked in July 2021 with the number of patients being served at that time amounted to around 17,292 patients.

"However, for this September, we have begun to gradually reduce it so that we still have a capacity of 3,675 beds throughout Indonesia", she said.

To provide services to non-COVID-19 patients, he said, several adjustments were made. "We have zoned patients with COVID-19 in the red zone, so the hospital has done some renovations", she said.

Her party also added negative pressure room facilities to anticipate the next spike in COVID-19.

"We have also carried out strict screening of inpatients at this vertical hospital, while still caring for non-COVID-19 patients, but separating them by screening safely in what we call the green zone", she said.