Mental Health Support for Frontline Medical Workers at Jakarta's Covid-19 Hospital
Jakarta. The Indonesian Army has organized a team of mental health counselors to provide support for medical workers at the makeshift Covid-19 hospital in Kemayoran Athletes' Village in Central Jakarta.
The deputy coordinator of the hospital, Dr. Stefanus Donny, said medical workers at the facility also need mental health support, just like the Covid-19 patients they are treating.
The ten-strong team is made up of counselors from the military and volunteers. Their job is to help the medical workers acclimatize to the working conditions at the Covid-19 hospital.
Initially, each medical worker has to spend 14 days in self-isolation after working at the hospital for 14 days straight.
Normally, medical workers would get a day off after several days on duty.
Stefanus said the medical workers are now required to work for 30 days straight initially at the facility since it was decided after an evaluation that 14 days were not enough to get themselves acclimatized to the new environment.
"After a month, they can start to understand the [unprecedented] situation were's facing in here," Covid-19 Task Force Chief Doni Monardo said after visiting the Athletes' Village on Monday.
The team of counselors is also training the medical workers on how to deal with patients from different backgrounds.
Patients at the Athletes' Village hospital have also been given mental health support from a similar team of counselors.
Since April, psychologists and psychiatrists have been employed at the hospital to give mental health assistance to the Covid-19 patients.
Since its transformation into a Covid-19 hospital in March, a total of 3,966 patients have been treated at the 4,000-bed facility until Monday, with 932 patients currently being hospitalized.
Tags: Keywords: