July 24 – Balinese Hospitals Running Out of Oxygen
The Balinese healthcare system is buckling under the strain of surging covid infections with hospitals there now running out of oxygen in scenes similar to the crisis being played out on the neighbouring island of Java.
As South East Asia’s largest country, Indonesia is in the grip of the region’s worst COVID outbreak, with new confirmed cases and confirmed deaths reaching record highs daily.
On a single day last week, patients in Balinese hospitals required over 113 tonnes of oxygen but hospitals on the island had only 40 tonnes available.
In response to the crisis the Indonesian Government has begun importing oxygen from the United States and China. Other countries in the region, notably Singapore and Australia, have been donating ventilators and supplies of much needed medical equipment. Australia has also been able to donate supplies of Astra Zeneca vaccines.
Indonesia has now recorded over three million confirmed cases of COVID, which most likely understates the true number due to the critically low rates of testing. Daily deaths in the country are now approaching 2,000 a day.
The latest surge in case numbers is attributed to the outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant which began circulating in June, around the same time as large numbers of people were travelling around the country during the Eid’l Fitri holiday period.