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Denpasar. Most of the hospitals in the resort island of Bali have not yet ready to handle the referral of patients infected with bird flu virus, a local health official has said.

Bali provincial health department chief dr Nyoman Sutedja said here on Sunday that type B hospital could handled bird flu virus infected patients but most of the hospitals in the province were type-C and could not do so.

Nyoman said that Bali only had three reference type-b hospitals for bird flu, namely Sanggala hospital in Denpasar, Tabanan hospital in Tabanan, and Sanjiwani hospital in Gianyar but the rests were type-C. The biggest hospital in Bali is Sanglah Central Hospital in the downtown of Denpasar.

According to him, type-C hospitals in Bali were unable to handle the patients infected with bird flu virus because they did not have sophisticated infrastructures and facilities nor capable medical experts.

"The specialist doctors for bird flu are mostly in the cities and only a few are at the hospitals in the regions," Nyoman Sutedja said, adding that the reference hospitals also needed specialist doctors who were able to use sophisticated instrument to treat the bird flu patients.

He pointed out that bird flu patients usually experience suffocation and therefore the needed shortness of breath and required artificial artificial respiration with a variety instruments.

"Special isolation room should also be considered for reference hospitals. So far Singaraja hospital in Buleleng has been expected to be developed into a reference hospital," he said.


Antara