IDNEWSNOW.COM, Jakarta – Jakarta has been using school buses to pick up Covid-19 patients and deliver them to the emergency hospital. Ali Murtadho, head of the School Transportation Management Unit (UPAS) at the Jakarta Transportation Agency, said that the use of school buses to transport Covid-19 patients has been done since March 2020.
“We were assigned by the governor to help ambulances evacuate Covid-19 patients,” he said when contacted on Thursday, September 17, 2020.
Ali’s remarks came after Twitter user @ArumBene posted about a school bus parked at the Palmerah Health Center in, West Jakarta. The user wrote that the bus was transporting residents to the Wisma Atlet in Kemayoran.
Seven units of school buses operate for said purpose every day. They have been modified to have features similar to the ambulance. The Transportation Department installed dividers separating the driver from the bus cabin.
One bus, said Ali, can carry 20 people. Operating without air conditioners, the buses will pick up Covid-19 patients as requested, to be taken to the Wisma Atlet Emergency Hospital.
The buses can also get the patients at pick-up points approved by the Jakarta Health Office. “We have to get a referral from the health office or puskesmas,” Ali said.
Read: Jakarta Health Agency Building Closed due to Covid-19 Cases
Lani Diana Wijaya
