Nearly 90 thousand beds have been used to treat COVID-19 patients.
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin revealed that almost 90 thousand out of the 120 thousand beds for COVID-19 patients had been occupied in the past seven weeks owing to a spike in COVID-19 cases.

"Nearly 90 thousand beds were used to treat COVID-19 patients," the minister stated at a hearing with the House of Representatives (DPR) Commission IX held virtually in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Sadikin remarked that early this year, the Health Ministry had issued an instruction to allocate 30 percent of the 400 thousand beds at hospitals across Indonesia to treat COVID-19 patients.

"The number of beds at hospitals across Indonesia reaches about 400 thousand. Early this year, I instructed to allocate 30 percent or 120 thousand of them for COVID-19 patients to conduct self-isolation," the minister stated.

The bed occupancy rate at COVID-19 hospitals continued to increase, especially after the Eid-al-Fitr homecoming trips. Nearly 90 thousand beds are currently occupied as compared to 23 thousand seven weeks ago, Sadikin pointed out.

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In total, the country has 120 thousand beds for COVID-19 patients. "However, if we surpass the figure, we will find it difficult since the figure represents 30 percent of the hospital beds across Indonesia," he cautioned.

The minister pointed to the looming threat of Yogyakarta and Jakarta running short of isolation rooms and intensive care units (ICUs) for COVID-19 patients.

"If the condition worsens up to 30 percent in the next one or two weeks, then Yogyakarta and Jakarta will run short of isolation beds and ICU beds for COVID-19 patients," he stated.

Yogyakarta has surpassed 91 percent of its bed occupancy rate, the highest in Indonesia.

"However, Yogyakarta has 8,200 beds, including 2,600 beds for isolation out of which 2,400 are occupied. It seems the figure was higher. However, Yogyakarta can still convert two thousand out of the 8,200 beds into isolation rooms," Sadikin stated.

This is not the case with Jakarta that has converted 50 percent of the hospital beds to treat COVID-19 patients, he pointed out.

"We converted large hospitals into COVID-19 hospitals. We have done so at Fatmawati Hospital, Persahabatan Hospital, and Sulianti Saroso Hospital that have been converted 100 percent into COVID-19 hospitals. Thus, we will get an additional one thousand beds," the minister remarked.

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Translator: Andi Firdaus, Suharto
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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