Citizen Protest On Personal Protective Equipment Crisis In Indonesia

PPE full suit (Irvan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - Citizens are busy expressing their disappointment regarding the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE). It's natural. This is because medical officers are at the forefront of fighting COVID-19. They hope that the government will focus on tackling COVID-19 so that the chain of its spread is quickly cut.

Netray's social media analysis page was monitored from 17 March to April 2020. During this period, around 124.1 thousand tweets related to the PPE crisis were found on Twitter social media.

The topic discussed by citizens was none other than the Corona pandemic 'outbreak'. This is not to mention the minimal PPE crisis provided by the government for the front line, both doctors and other medical personnel.

Recap of Netray monitoring data (doc. Netray)

This was also supplemented by a letter from the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) together with four other health organizations to provide proper supplies of PPE for medical and health personnel. If this is not fulfilled, the doctors and nurses will go on strike or serve patients.

One of the accounts that many netizens retweet is @MarikaRahman_, he expressed his opinion that IDI's assertiveness regarding PPE is solely for the safety of the patient itself. "Doctors must not be infected, because if they are infected they will start their patients. Doctors must be perfectly protected," he tweeted.

However, after reaping strong reactions, IDI then straightened the meaning of the contents of the letter. According to the Chairman of IDI, Daeng M Faqih, the letter was an appeal to all health workers to comply with standard operating procedures (SOP) by wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) in dealing with Corona patients.

"Because if health workers are determined to treat Covid-19 patients without wearing PPE, they will immediately catch and become sick. If many health workers fall, who else will treat the increasing number of patients," said Daeng M to Tempo.

Another highlight of the conversation, based on Netray's watch, occurred on March 29. At that time it coincided with the viral video of two people wearing complete PPE shopping at the supermarket. It caught the public's attention. There were about 14,118 observed who talked about it.

Various warganet comments (doc. Netray)

The reason is, this incident made netizens furious. How could I not, in the midst of the current PPE crisis, there are people who use PPE inappropriately. Suddenly the majority of netizens expressed negative sentiments on this case.

One of the comments was the account owner @septiisywari. He said, "He went shopping to the supermarket using PPE? How are you doing with the medical personnel who are currently lacking PPE?" he said.

Similar comments came from the @alterrrego_ account owner. This account says that "Stop teaching or understanding things like that, please. If the goods are not hard to find, I really don't want to," he uploaded.

Through Netray's observation, it was seen that the area that was most busy talking about the PPE crisis was South Jakarta. This makes sense because DKI Jakarta is the region with the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia. Based on the latest data in DKI Jakarta, there were 1,232 cases.

Meanwhile, for now the Head of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) as well as the Chairperson of the Task Force for the Acceleration of Covid-19 Handling Lieutenant General Doni Monardo is confident that domestic PPE needs can be met. Dono said this in a virtual work meeting with Commission VIII of the DPR yesterday (6/4).

"But rest assured BNPB or the Task Force will do their best to fulfill the PPE," said Doni.

https://t.co/m5eqADJnnE

- BNPB Indonesia (@BNPB_Indonesia) April 3, 2020

Doni is grateful that two weeks ago Customs managed to thwart the export of 2,500 PPE to South Korea. He added that in Indonesia there are more than 20 textile companies that produce PPE, but many of the raw materials come from the ordering country.

But now, said Doni, Indonesia has started to produce PPE using domestic raw materials. Indonesia, said Doni, will begin mass-producing PPE.