Jakarta – The Jakarta administration is hoping to recruit 1,800 medical workers by next week to address the COVID-19 crisis in the capital.
"We are recruiting now and by next week, there will be 1,800 medical workers ready," Jakarta health agency head Widyawati told journalists on Tuesday.
She said the additional medical workers were needed because Jakarta was expanding the city's 67 COVID-19 referral hospitals. The administration was adding more rooms, medical equipment and beds.
According to a letter announcing the recruitment circulated last week, the city is looking for pulmonary specialists, internists, pediatricians, obstetricians, general practitioners, nurses, infectious disease nurses and midwives. The administration is also looking for radiographers, surveillance personnel and educators.
The medical workers will be paid between Rp 4.2 million (US$286.35) and Rp 15 million a month.
Indonesia recently recorded an unprecedented spike in confirmed COVID-19 cases, including in Jakarta, which saw 901 new cases on Tuesday after a record-high daily increase of 1,114 on Sunday.
Governor Anies Baswedan, however, said on Monday that COVID-19 transmission in the capital was under control, attributing the spike in cases to aggressive testing.
Widyawati said the administration would try to keep the bed occupancy rate below 60 percent, adding that private hospitals were reducing the number of COVID-19 patients they were treating so that they could handle other patients.