Day: April 13, 2022

Head of the Indonesian Military Health Center (Kapuskes TNI), Major General Budiman, stated that the Indonesian Military (TNI) is ready to anticipate any surge in COVID-19 cases that may occur after the 2022 Eid al-Fitr.

“The potential spike in cases after Eid has been calculated,” he noted after opening the 2022 TNI Health Technical Coordination Meeting (Rakornikes) at the TNI Headquarters here on Wednesday.

With vaccinations being expedited, it is anticipated that COVID-19 transmission after Eid would be under greater control, he noted.

“The implementation of 3M health protocols, 3T (testing, tracing, treatment), and vaccinations remains mandatory. Thus, all hospitals, such as those under the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Defense, TNI, the National Police (Polri), or the private sector, have been prepared to face that (spike in cases),” Budiman remarked.

The health facilities readied include the Wisma Atlet Kemayoran COVID-19 Emergency Hospital and the Wisma Atlet Pademangan COVID-19 Emergency Hospital. Moreover, all volunteers at the Wisma Atlet Kemayoran hospital continued to be alerted to face various possibilities.

Budiman noted that currently, the Wisma Atlet Kemayoran COVID-19 Emergency Hospital is still treating 40 COVID-19 patients despite the decreasing number of daily confirmed cases.

“Meanwhile, the number of active (COVID-19) cases nationally as of today stands at 70 thousand, and the number of daily cases on average is at one thousand. This shows an encouraging figure, thanks to the excellent collaboration under the leadership of the minister of health with all relevant stakeholders, including the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) as well as the TNI and Polri,” he remarked.

Regarding the plan to increase the number of personnel and bed capacity, he affirmed that the preparations being made are better than those during the outbreak of the Delta variant. Moreover, although the Omicron variant spreads quickly, its impact on health is not as severe as the Delta variant, he added.

“Like what the health minister has conveyed, our preparations in terms of hospitals, bed availability, isolation facility availability, ICUs, oxygen, medicines, and others are so much more ready as compared to during the Delta variant (spread),” he stated.

Source: Antara News

Public communication through collaboration among ministries or institutions became an important step in implementing President Instruction No. 1 of 2022 on Optimizing the National Health Insurance and Healthy Indonesia Card (JKN-KIS) Program, an official stated.

Public communication concerning the JKN-KIS Program became the government’s agenda that has to be orchestrated through harmony, Communication and Informatics Ministry’s Public Information and Communication Director General Usman Kansong noted through a statement on Wednesday.

“We expect that ministries or institutions are also able to build strong JKN-KIS narrations that the public needs and is seeking for,” he remarked.

During the Bakohumas Thematic Forum titled “Mass Collaboration for an Optimal National Health Insurance and Healthy Indonesia Card Program,” he affirmed that the public communication agenda for the JKN-KIS Program is spread out across various government channels.

The agenda is expected to improve Indonesians’ prosperity, specifically in expediting the realization of Universal Health Coverage.

Meanwhile, President Director of State-owned Healthcare and Social Security Agency BPJS Kesehatan Ali Ghufron Mukti, who became the host of the forum, stated that the agency is ready to collaborate.

This collaboration is forged, specifically for public communication and, most importantly, dissemination of information to the people.

“Of course, with open arms, we are ready to synergize to produce fresh and up-to-date public communication and education contents,” he remarked.

The matter concerning the JKN program and BPJS Kesehatan often became a popular topic within the public domain, he stated.

“However, this can be utilized, so that the people become more aware and understand about their important contribution to maintaining the health of individuals and the public,” he stated.

BPJS Kesehatan strives to reform itself in all aspects by perfecting its policies, strengthening its system, and encouraging improvement in health service provision performance for JKN-KIS members.

Moreover, to provide service facilitation, speed, and accuracy for JKN-KIS members, BPJS Kesehatan also conducts a variety of breakthroughs and innovations by increasing the utilization of information technology.

Source: Antara News

The Bantul District Health Office, Yogyakarta, would not offer COVID-19 vaccine services at Eid exodus posts, but it would be provided at the vaccination center located in the office’s yard.

Head of the Bantul Health Office, Agus Budi Raharjo, said that the office is not administering vaccines at the posts because getting vaccinated is already a requirement for participating in the Eid exodus.

People are not supposed to get vaccinated once they arrive; however, they can still avail the service at the vaccination center, he said.

The Bantul Health Office’s COVID-19 vaccination center will offer vaccines to travelers or Bantul residents participating in homecoming as long as there are no problems and they meet the eligibility criteria.

“We do not restrict it. (People) from wherever can participate in vaccination, no problem, but it (must be done) at the vaccination center because we have to (consider) the (capacity) of our human resources and our infrastructure,” Raharjo said.

Apart from human resource concerns, lack of interest has been another factor in the decision to not offer vaccinations at posts, given that the majority of people visiting Bantul would already be vaccinated or have received the booster dose before traveling.

Nevertheless, the Bantul Health Office has prepared several measures to address the possibility of a spike during the 2022 Eid exodus. It has coordinated with medical service providers to set up the Eid homecoming post.

Based on vaccination coverage data from the Bantul Health Office, as of April 12, 2022, the number of people who have received the first dose has reached 788,551, or 87.68 percent of the 899,352 targeted recipients. Meanwhile, the number of second dose recipients has reached 756,034, or 84.06 percent of the targeted population.

Further, as many as 107,305 people, or 14.27 percent of the 752,225 targeted recipients, have received the booster dose.

Source: Antara News

Head of the Indonesian Military (TNI) Health Center, Major General Budiman, has said that the military needs to develop nuclear, biological, and chemical (Nubika), as well as cyber health units to tackle modern threats.

“In the future, there will be potential threats and wars generated by the combination of fourth and fifth generation warfare with biological warfare, which could trigger the occurrence of biological asymmetric warfare and biocyber warfare,” he underlined at the 2022 Health Technical Coordination Meeting.

The meeting was held at the TNI Headquarters, in Cilangkap, East Jakarta, on Wednesday.

The discovery of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) synthesis technology, which is expected to trigger the rise of Industrial Revolution 5.0 in the future, will further diversify the pattern of biological threats, which will indirectly affect the techniques and strategies regarding the development and utilization of biological warfare, he said.

“Hence, the military needs to prevent and counter the threats by developing a Nubika and cyber health unit, which is equipped with sophisticated facilities,” he emphasized.

Thus, he said he expected that the TNI will always be solid, loyal, and professional in performing its duties.

The TNI Health Center has demonstrated concrete action and its role as a national health sub-system and national resilience support in handling the COVID-19 pandemic, Budiman added.

Furthermore, the implementation of penta-helix cooperation for handling the pandemic is essentially a civil-military collaboration, which has existed for a long time—since the era of the war of independence, he said.

The collaboration can be maintained well as long as the soldiers understand the TNI’s identity, ethics code, and principal task, he added.

“One manifestation of good civil-military collaboration is the operation of the Wisma Atlet COVID-19 Emergency Hospital,” he noted.

Penta-helix cooperation refers to a collaboration between the government, academics, community, business, and media.

Source: Antara News