Indonesian pulmonologist Erlina Burhan is exasperated after another long shift in a jam-packed hospital missing 200 staff infected by the coronavirus despite being vaccinated just months ago.
About 95% health workers have been fully vaccinated, overwhelmingly with China's Sinovac, said the Indonesian Hospitals Association .
Lia Partakusuma, secretary general of the IHA, said she had surveyed big state-run hospitals across Java's major cities.Those staff should isolate for two weeks, she added, although other medical professionals said many were sequestered for as little as five days because they were so badly needed at work.
Epidemiologists say that low testing rates mean official COVID-19 data does not truly reflect the extent of the outbreak.Patients hooked up to intravenous drips in car parks, others lying comatose in makeshift beds in corridors, the frantic search for oxygen amid shortages - all now commonplace in hospitals across Java, doctors and hospital directors say.
An executive of a hospital chain, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said caring for COVID-19 patients often required skills that could not be provided by students or other volunteers.The government has imposed tough social restrictions on the islands of Java and Bali, while the health minister has promised nearly 8,000 more hospital beds."The problem is manpower. Even if we can add space, who can take care of them?" said neurologist Eka Julianta Wahjoepramono.
"Many of my colleagues did not have significant antibodies increase after Sinovac," he said, meaning they did not have high levels of protection against infections. Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin has defended the Sinovac vaccine. "The issue that we are facing is not about the different efficacy between vaccines, it is primarily because of the Delta variant."