It took Indonesia 14 months to surpass the 50,000 mark in deaths at May's end, and only nine weeks to make it double. In the last 24 hours, the Health Ministry reported 1,747 COVID-19 deaths, bringing the total number to 100,636.
These figures are thought to be an underestimate.
LaporCOVID-19, an independent data group that tracks home-related deaths, reports that more than 2,800 people died from self-isolation since June. He said that some of these deaths are included in the official statistics, while others are not.
"They were rejected at the hospitals so they returned home and did the self isolation at home with limited access medicine, no oxygen, and no monitoring by doctors until their deaths," Ahmad Arif, one the founders of LaporCOVID-19, said.
WHO states that hospitals need oxygen supplies and isolation rooms.
Lia Partakusuma is the secretary general of Indonesia Hospital Association. She said that intensive care beds are still in short supply, especially outside Java where her association has received numerous reports about people dying at home.
She said, "It's very rare for patients to come directly into the ICU." "Many patients refuse to wait in the emergency room, perhaps they feel uncomfortable and so they decide to return home."
Pramirtha Sudirman, Pramirtha's infected brother, and his parents, decided to isolate their home in Bogor, south Jakarta, because the local hospitals were overcrowded in early July.
The 32-year old said that they had spoken to a doctor beforehand and planned to rush to the hospital if their symptoms worsened.
She said, "We were aware of the risks associated with self-isolation."
Her father, who had seemed to be on the right track to recovery, suddenly became ill and died at home. They were unable to get him to the hospital. Since then, her mother and brother are both well.
"We did our best. She said that she has no regrets, but also acknowledged that the hospital was full.
Since March 2020, Indonesia has seen more than 3.5million COVID-19-related cases. It is the fourth most populous nation in the world. With more than 30100 deaths, July was the deadliest month since the pandemic started. This is more than the 7,914 deaths reported in June. The current per capita rate of death is the second-highest in the region after Myanmar.
The government responded by intensifying its vaccination campaign, diverting most of the country’s industrial oxygen production to medical use, building more isolation centers, field hospitals, and increasing supplies of medicine to hospitals.
The situation is improving in Jakarta where patients are not being turned down like in the past, stated Mahesa Paranadipa who is the co-leader for the Risk Mitigation Team at the Indonesian Medical Association.
