Indonesia fears rainy season as Covid-19 isolation wards flood
- Heavy flooding combined with a Delta-fuelled second wave of the pandemic could overwhelm the health-care system in the disaster-prone country, experts warn
- These fears have been underlined by social media images showing large parts of a hospital in Banda Aceh underwater
The season traditionally stretches from approximately September to April, but heavy rains have already begun to fall in some places, fuelling fears that a combination of the second wave – which has been made worse by the more aggressive Delta variant – and heavy flooding could overwhelm the health-care system, especially in rural areas.
In Aceh province, on the northwest tip of Sumatra island, there are already signs such fears are coming true. Floods that hit the provincial capital of Banda Aceh this week left large parts of Dr Zainoel Abidin General Hospital underwater.
On Tuesday evening, images on social media showed the hospital’s hallways, patient wards and Covid-19 isolation rooms underwater.
“Fortunately, management responded very quickly,” Dr Novina Rahmawati, coordinator of the hospital’s emerging infectious diseases unit, said.
“The duty manager and hospital staff checked the patient rooms immediately and started to evacuate documents and medical records so that they did not get wet or float away. They also provided support to doctors and medical staff and moved some of the patients’ beds to other areas of the hospital. They also brought in pumps to suck out the water.”