Why the study?
The COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted emergency and elective surgical care, prompting analysis of organization, priorities for restoring elective surgery, and patient selection criteria.
What are the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on surgical services and patient outcomes?
What are the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on surgical services and patient outcomes?
The COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted surgical services and increased postoperative morbidity and mortality, highlighting the need for strategic restoration of elective surgeries.
Highlights pandemic-driven cancellations of elective surgery; leaves open optimal resumption protocols for future crises.
The COVID-19 pandemic has a serious impact on surgical service, emergency and especially elective surgical care. Many hospitals were re-designated as COVID hospitals due to resource constraints and large number of COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization. This led to cancellation or postponement of scheduled surgeries. In addition, restrictions in elective surgery were associated with the risk of infection in surgical patients. Various protocols and guidelines recommended non-surgical or outpatient treatment if possible. During the pandemic, postoperative morbidity and mortality in emergency surgery increased significantly. The same is true for elective surgeries in 7-8 weeks after previous coronavirus infection. The authors analyze the issues of organization, priorities for restoration of elective surgery and criteria for patient selection.
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Тимербулатов et al. (2023) studied this question.
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