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Otolaryngology Surgical Activity in Tertiary Care Center During the Covid-19 Lockdown
Balasubramanyam Atru • Mithun Sutrave • Rani George • Rhea James • Anita Ross • Pratibha C.B Abstract Corona virus disease (COVID 19) is an infectious
respiratory disease caused by the novel virus severe
acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
With many countries implementing lockdown the surgical
activities in the division of otolaryngology across the world
has been affected with many hospital confining themselves
to only emergency or essential surgeries. The aim of this
work is to report and discuss the in the surgical activity of
the otolaryngology unit of the St John’s National Academy
of Health Sciences, Bangalore (India) during the pandemic.
We performed acute and subacute emergencies which
include diagnosis and treatment of malignant tumors of the
head and neck, management of airway emergencies in
adults and children, drainage of abscesses of the head and
neck, Foreign body removal, emergency nasal debridement
and surgeries for the unsafe ear. With the pandemic the
surgical activities in otolaryngology changed drastically
and with strict protocol and triaging put in place the risk for
Health care workers was avoided and services to patients
delivered.
Aims and Objectives
The aim of this work is to report and discuss the in the
surgical activity of the otolaryngology unit of the St John’s
National Academy of Health Sciences, Bangalore (India)
during the pandemic. Particular attention was given to the
number of procedures and type of surgery performed during
the pandemic, and data were compared with the same
period in 2019.
Methodology
A triage system was followed for the surgeries which is
based on the need of performing the procedure, risk
involved and type of protection required by the health care
worker. The various categories of surgeries are highlighted
in Table 1.
Surgical activity
During the nationwide lockdown, we performed the following
surgical procedures, which included acute and
subacute emergencies.
diagnosis and treatment of malignant tumors of the head
and neck, management of airway emergencies in adults and
children, drainage of abscesses of the head and neck,
Foreign body removal, emergency nasal debridement and
surgeries for the unsafe ear.
Also the number of cases of individual surgeries were
compared with the data obtained during the same period in
previous year.
