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THE hospitality industry reactivation support program from the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy for self-isolation of patients confirmation without symptoms enters the finalization stage of the Ministry of Health to see the readiness of hotels to receive patients.
According to the Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Wishnutama Kusubandio in his statement, explained that until now the support from the hotel industry for this program is getting higher, showing the strong cooperation of the tourism industry and the creative economy in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
“The hotel industry must be able to follow the assessment required by the Ministry of Health. Hotel readiness must be ensured by the Ministry of Health so that new clusters do not occur,” Wishnutama Kusubandio said.
He added that until now there are 30 hotels in DKI Jakarta that are ready to cooperate. Tourism Ministry and the Ministry of Health are also preparing a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) regarding the implementation mechanism, related to how people who are positively infected with COVID-19 but without symptoms can check-in at designated hotels.
Tourism Ministry will prepare and cover accommodation costs in the form of a minimum hotel class or equivalent to 3 stars, including daily consumption and laundry services. While the Ministry of Health will handle medical needs such as drug costs, ambulances as well as doctor visits.
“The selection of hotels that we have prepared is based on input from the Indonesian Hotel & Restaurant Association (PHRI). Apart from the PHRI proposal, hotels that are ready can send submissions to the Ministry of Tourism for further review by the Ministry of Health,” Wishnutama noted.
Meanwhile, Deputy for Marketing of Tourism Ministry, Nia Niscaya, said that this program would be focused first in Jakarta, then following several other provinces in Indonesia until December 2020.
“The requirement for hotels that are partners is that they cannot accept other guests except for confirmation patients without symptoms,” Nia Niscaya affirmed.
Likewise, the Expert Minister of Health in the Health Crisis Sector, dr. Iwan Trihapsoro who was appointed as PIC of the Ministry of Health for this program said that training was needed for hotel employees so that they were not afraid but remained vigilant.
The Ministry of Health is also of the view that hotel staff with comorbidities are advised not to have direct contact with confirmed asymptomatic patients, or that they can get a work from home policy (WFH) by hotel management so that it requires further coordination.
Dr. Iwan explained that everyone who is positive for COVID-19 but without symptoms can come directly to the hotel with a ID/family card and a positive SWAB result. However, before that, people who would use this independent isolation facility were required to ask for a referral to the Community Health Center (Puskesmas) first.
“The flow of the patient is to bring a positive SWAB result, check in the hotel, be isolated for 14 days. While at the hotel there will be a doctor’s visit and data collection will be carried out with a cut off time to be determined. During this isolation period, patients are not allowed to leave the hotel and receive guests,” dr. Iwan said.
With the additional support of the hotel as an independent isolation accommodation, in the future confirmation patients without symptoms and with mild symptoms are expected not to self-isolate at home, so that they do not have the potential to infect their family and people around them.
“Hopefully this step will be an effective effort by the government to reduce the rate of spread of COVID-19,” dr. Iwan concluded. [traveltext.id]
