The death of a senior Indonesian doctor to COVID-19 has sparked further calls for Indonesian citizens to heed protocols for isolation and stay at home amid the outbreak, following a series of viral posts from his daughter detailing his final days.
The doctor, Bambang Sutrisna, died of COVID-19 at Persahabatan General Hospital in East Jakarta yesterday. His death has been confirmed by the University of Indonesia (UI), where he is a professor, and the Indonesian Doctor’s Association (IDI).
IDI kembali berduka… pic.twitter.com/wQVUFUPyMc
— PB IDI (@PBIDI) March 23, 2020
Bambang’s daughter, Leonita Triwachyuni, took to Instagram yesterday to share how her father got infected with the viral disease. In a series of Instagram stories, Leonita began by telling that the doctor handled a patient suspected of COVID-19.
“My father can be stubborn, [we] told him not to practice but he said he felt sorry for the patient who came from afar. Turns out that the said patient was a suspected COVID-19 patient, whose x-ray showed that their lungs were entirely white. That patient insisted on going home from a Bintaro hospital because of this and that,” Leonita wrote.
After meeting the patient, Bambang began complaining of a fever and difficulty breathing — two known COVID-19 symptoms. He was then brought to the hospital by his family and as his condition worsened, Leonita said that Bambang remained in touch with his family through phone calls from the isolation room.
“I wrote this to ask for help, to those who have the choice, please don’t be stubborn and #StayAtHome, while for those who are [being treated at hospitals], please don’t be stubborn to the point of insisting on going home,” Leonita pleaded to her followers.
“Angry? Of course I’m angry because there are egoistic people like you who didn’t want to obey [the rules] and bring [the] disease to our family,” she added.
Leonita expressed hope that what happened to her father could be a lesson for others to obey the government’s advice of staying at home, as part of an effort to break the chain of the coronavirus spread in Indonesia.
Following Bambang’s death, another senior doctor who’s a professor at Gajah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, Iwan Dwiprahasto, also died of COVID-19. As of today, IDI confirmed that at least eight doctors have died of the viral disease.
As of yesterday afternoon, Indonesia has confirmed 579 cases of COVID-19, including 49 deaths and 30 recoveries.
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