At least 44 medical staffs have passed away due to COVID-19 since the first case was confirmed in the country on 2 March.
The government never released the official number of the medical staffs who passed away due to this virus.
According to local media, however, the numbers comprised 24 doctors and 20 nurses.
Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) stated that most of the medical personnel who died as a result of exposure to the COVID-19 were not from a referral hospital.
IDI chairman Daeng M Faqih said the cause of the transmission of medical personnel was because many patients came to the doctor, without realizing they had been exposed to the virus.
Moreover, both the public and the medical staff were not adequately briefed on the virus.
“The patient does not understand that he has been infected, and the doctor is not alert, because the patient comes to the doctor without saying he has symptoms like COVID-19,” he added.
Many doctors exposed to the virus are those who open private practices.
To make things worse, many patients lie when giving information to medical staff.
One of the examples is a patient living in Central Java who did not inform the doctors that they had just returned from Italy.
She was then confirmed positive with the virus a couple of days after her first visit. This caused 57 medical workers to become infected and led to the death of a nurse.
While hospitals have difficulty meeting the needs of the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), such tools are widely used by regular people.
One of the cases was seen at one of the supermarkets in where two women were seen wearing hazmat suits while doing their grocery shopping, as seen in a video shared by a viral page called Lambe Turah on Instagram.
On another occasion, Mr Faqih asked the government to increase the number of PPE shared due to the increasing number of COVID-19 patients every day.
He stressed that the government must supervise the distribution of PPE, adding that he was worried that there were still some hospitals that had not yet received PPE.
“You can only use this PPE for a certain time … It is not enough if it is only supplied in a certain amount and only in a certain period. So it must be supplied continuously,” he said.
Many of the personnel were reported to wear raincoats instead of the proper equipment.
A picture of otolaryngologists Bernadette Albertine Francisca wearing a raincoat went viral after her death. She passed away due to COVID-19 in March.
While Dr Bernadette did not deal directly with patients infected with the virus, it was suspected that she was exposed when serving other patients.
Despite the fact that medical staff are considered warriors to the majority of the public, several incidents revealed that there have been residents rejecting the funeral of medical personnel in their neighbourhood.
In an area in Central Java, a nurse passed away due to the virus.
The nurse was initially scheduled to be buried in Sewakul Public Cemetery (TPU), Bandardjo Village, located in Semarang Regency, Central Java.
However, because the residents around the cemetery refused the body of the nurse, the deceased was moved to the family grave complex of Dr Kariadi Hospital in Semarang City.
