Number of surgeries halves in one year

New Delhi: The number of surgeries conducted at Delhi’s Apollo hospital – one of the largest corporate hospitals in the city – reduced by nearly a half during the pandemic (between April 2020 and March 2021) as compared to the pre-pandemic year (March 2019 to April 2020).

While the most affected surgical specialty was bariatric surgery or weight loss surgery with a reduction of nearly 88% from the pre-pandemic year to the pandemic period, sharp reduction was also seen in eye-related surgeries (-65%) and heart surgeries (-55%) among others, a comparative analysis of the inpatient and outpatient data at the 710-bedded hospital has revealed. The result has been published in Indian Journal of Medical Sciences.
Dr Anupam Sibal, group medical director, Apollo Hospitals Group and senior consultant, paediatric gastroenterology, said the Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on both the hospital’s major medical and surgical specialties. “The only medical specialty that saw more patients was respiratory medicine with a significant increase of about 314% in admissions because of Covid-19. The surgical work was reduced significantly across all the specialties, with bariatric surgery (87.5%) and ophthalmology (65.45%) being affected the most and general surgery (32.28%) and neurosurgery the least,” Dr Sibal added.

“It was observed that all the medical and surgical specialties dealing more with critical and emergency care were less affected than the others. The most urgent surgical and interventional work was undertaken with due precautions, such as liver (56.46%) and kidney (54.89%) transplants, urgent neurosurgery (65.62%), cardiac surgery (44.56%) and surgical oncology (53.6%).”

A similar trend was observed in other private hospitals also.

While most patients were too scared to visit hospitals fearing they might contract Covid-19 from the infected individuals, there were others who couldn’t reach due to travel restrictions imposed during the lockdown. Also, many hospitals were directed to reserve a significant percentage of their beds for Covid patients.

“The Covid-19 pandemic is far from over. Therefore, going further, we need to devise ways to ensure that non-Covid services can be delivered safely even as we deal with the Covid crisis,” Dr Raju Vaishya, the corresponding author of the study, told TOI.

He added that they came across many non-Covid patients during the pandemic who developed serious complications due to delayed medical intervention and landed in the emergency. “All hospitals have their employees vaccinated now. So, it is relatively safer to visit for OPD consultation or surgery. Patients should not delay visiting hospitals for consultation or surgery, as may be the case,” Dr Vaishya, a senior orthopaedic and joint replacement surgeon, said.

Patient footfall has decreased significantly in government-run hospitals also. “Due to the pandemic, elective surgeries were suspended at our hospital for several months. This has led to a heavy backlog. The waiting time for surgeries, for example kidney transplant, has nearly doubled,” said a senior doctor at Safdarjung Hospital. Same problem is being faced by the patients at AIIMS and Lok Nayak hospitals also.