The Ministry of Health and COVID-19 Task Force of Papua are being asked to re-activate treatment rooms for corona patients throughout the hospital, in anticipation of a spike in cases in the region.

This was conveyed by the Deputy Director of Jayapura Hospital, dr. Silwanus Sumule in Jayapura, Thursday (8/7/2021).

"Papua Province has 45 hospitals and 16 of them are referral hospitals. In anticipation of the surge in corona cases, we asked the Ministry of Health and COVID-19 Task Force to activate treatment rooms for corona patients throughout the hospital," he said.

According to Silwanus, Jayapura Hospital has now started to repurpose a number of rooms to treat patients exposed to COVID-19. That is due to the limited isolation room in the hospital.

"There are even a number of corona patients who have to be treated in IGD. While the ICU room is specifically for treating corona patients with a critical category, there are only two rooms left. So there began to be a diversion of the room," he explained.

Sumule still said, since a few days ago, the isolation room of Jayapura Hospital has started to be full. So it plans to open a 2nd floor MCC building to handle corona patients.

He also suspected that similar steps had begun to be taken by several hospitals in Jayapura City, Jayapura District and Keerom.

While related to the treatment for non-COVID-19 patients, he added, it has prepared a contingency plan to improve the referral system. It is intended that only COVID-19 patients with critical levels will be treated by Jayapura Hospital.

"This means that later for moderate and severe patients are handled by several hospitals in Jayapura city and surrounding areas," he said.