YAKARTA – Andhika Kesuma Putra, a young and ambitious pneumologist, and his love of respiratory disease treatment led him to lead a COVID-19 patient care team at a hospital in Medan, the largest city on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.
Two months after accepting the job, Putra began to feel unwell, her condition deteriorated and she was rushed to a hospital where she tested positive for coronavirus.
“There is an option that I may be among the cases of deathArray . . . God willing, I will die a martyr,” the doctor of about 30 wrote in his last text to his wife, a medical colleague, before he died in August. . 1.
His wife and daughter also tested positive, and they have since recovered and returned home.
Putra’s story and the testimony of her friends and colleagues were published in laporcovid19. org, an analysis of a local control body that monitors the coronavirus scenario in Indonesia. There are dozens of similar stories of doctors and nurses who died in Indonesia’s cracking war with the pandemic.
Up to 115 doctors died from the pandemic on September 12, according to the Indonesian Physicians Association. Amnesty International said a total of 188 doctors lost their lives on 8 September, one of the highest numbers of fitness professionals in Asia.
“The fitness mortality rate has risen dramatically,” usman Hamid, executive director of Amnesty’s Indonesian branch, said last week. the disease The number has doubled since then.
Amnesty said in mid-July that more than 3,000 natural persons had died after contracting COVID-19 in 79 countries around the world.
These deaths in Indonesia have increased in parallel with the recent outbreak of cases in the world’s fourth most populous country. New infections have surpassed a maximum of 3,000 each day in more than two weeks, the highest daily number since the country began the epidemic. The escalation scene has forced the capital, Jakarta, to restore large-scale movement restrictions, despite protests by central government officials over the economic impact.
On Wednesday, Indonesia reported 228993 cases of coronavirus with 9,100 deaths. The number of infections is the time in Southeast Asia after the Philippines, however, the country is only a time for India in terms of deaths in Asia.
The maximum mortality rate reflects Indonesia’s overburdened fitness system, which has been under strain since the start of the epidemic, local observers noted.
Despite being Southeast Asia’s largest economy, Indonesia’s fitness care is lower than that of its neighbors.
According to the Latest Knowledge of the World Health Organization, Indonesia has only 10 hospital beds consistent with a population of 10,000, similar to the Philippines, but smaller than Malaysia with 19, Thailand with 21 and Vietnam with 32. And there are only 4 doctors for 10,000 people. – less than six in the Philippines, 8 in Thailand and Vietnam, and 15 in Malaysia.
There are also large disparities between the provinces of the vast Indonesian archipelago: Jakarta’s hospital bed capacity, for example, is more than double the national average, however, other regions, adding adjacent Banten and West Java, are below average.
Still, Jakarta’s physical care formula is also about to be overwhelmed, according to the governor of the capital region, Anies Baswedan, who said last week that 4053 isolation beds and 528 beds of extensive care for coronavirus patients would be complete as soon as this week.
His claims were refuted through central government officials, adding Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto, who said Monday that Jakarta is able to handle outbreaks and added that 16,000 doctors, nurses, laboratory analysts and other fitness personnel have been deployed across the country to combat the outbreak. epidemic, and some another 5,000, adding up to 3,500 young doctors, are in a position to be sent if necessary.
But the question is whether fitness personnel can spend even longer race days without good enough coverage and incentives, especially in the face of a great threat of infection or even death.
“Long hours of operation due to insufficient fitness personnel in the country have wreaked havoc on the staff’s medical corps during the pandemic,” Amnesty said, bringing in an official from the Indonesian Physicians Association. “In addition to the threat of getting COVID. “-19, long hours of work, mental misery and fatigue are also a major fear for medical staff. “
About 83% of the more than 1,400 physicians and other fitness personnel surveyed in the country’s 34 provinces reported moderate to severe “exhaustion,” according to a report by the University of Indonesia’s Faculty of Medicine between June and August. patients with coronavirus, the researchers said.
Meanwhile, only 6% of another 87. 55 billion rupees ($5. 9 billion) in physical care to combat the promised pandemic since April had been dispensed on August 19, which is possibly why many doctors and nurses still complain that they have not gained months of extraordinary time.
Amnesty said the distribution of non-public protective devices for fitness personnel remains slow and “keeps up with the abundant accumulation of COVID-19 cases in Indonesia. “
But despite many innovations in recent months, control capacity remains limited. This has forced some doctors to pay for their own PCR checks (some hospitals charge up to Rs 2. 5 million ($168) according to the check), while other doctors would possibly be treating patients while unconsciously porning the virus.
Members of other fitness care associations spoke of effort, direct or oblique, to remain silent. However, some are asking their peers to fight for the government’s poor reaction to their demands.
“The lack of transparency or ‘culture of secrecy’ in Indonesian hospitals has disadvantaged staff and medical staff from an effective grievance mechanism or an area to channel their complaints,” Hamid said of Amnesty International.
“Amnesty International warns that non-compliance by the government with the rights of fitness personnel will lead to further deaths and increase the capacity of the national fitness formula to treat patients with COVID-19 as the pandemic develops,” Hamid said.
Additional report via Bobthrough Nugroho and Ismi Damayanti.
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