TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has called on Indonesian hospitals to improve the referral system and treatment management of COVID-19 patients in a bid to prevent the overload of patients that were increasing lately.

“This is to overcome the overcapacity of the coronavirus referral hospitals. The management must be really improved,” said the President as he opened a limited meeting on the weekly report of the national task force of COVID-19 mitigation via teleconference on Monday, April 20.

He asserted that the coronavirus referral hospitals must only treat patients who developed severe symptoms. The government has converted the Athlete's Village in Central Jakarta into a COVID-19 emergency hospital to treat patients with mild to moderate symptoms.

“[The COVID-19 treatment] must be managed thoroughly. Which patients with mild, moderate, or severe symptoms, and which require intensive care in the hospitals,” the president remarked.

He also demanded data and information related to patients diagnosed with the coronavirus disease be opened for the public because all parties should be able to get the same reports.

President Jokowi further appealed to the public not to make assumptions that the government hid its COVID-19 data. “No, we didn't cover up the problem since the onset [of the outbreak].”

EGI ADYATAMA