Treatment for Non COVID patients hit amidst focus on COVID 19 suggests a Study

“Treatment for Non COVID patients hit amidst focus on COVID 19 suggests a Study by Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, New Delhi published in the Indian Journal of Medical Sciences”

• COVID-19 emergency had a direct and profound impact on the health-care delivery of non-COVID medical and surgical conditions
• There is a need for those have neglected their care to receive medical attention at the earliest

New Delhi, July 09, 2021:

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted healthcare delivery across the globe. The entire health-care delivery facilities had to undergo a transformation to combat the spread of this highly infectious viral disease, the mandatory travel restrictions and ever-increasing COVID-19 cases have had a significant impact on the health-care delivery to the cases in all the medical and surgical specialties.

To understand the impact on efficient healthcare delivery, a team at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, Delhi conducted an observational cohort study of nearly six hundred thousand cases. The study included a thorough observation on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on various medical and surgical specialties for the entire duration, since the onset of the pandemic, and compared it with the preceding pre-pandemic period (1st June, 2019–31st March, 2020).

Mr P Shivakumar, Managing Director, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, New Delhi said, “The study evaluated the data of 6,77,237 cases (599,281 outpatient and 77,956 hospital admissions) in the past 2 years (pandemic and pre-pandemic). It found that there was a significant effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on most spheres of clinical practice, including the outpatient attendance and elective surgeries. Attendance of both new and follow-up cases dropped by 57.65%. The outpatient cases attendance saw a significant reduction of 89.2 %, followed by a reduction of 80.75% in surgical work. Going forward, healthcare providers need to factor in the impact of fear which resulted in patients ignoring their healthcare needs which can be detrimental.”

Dr. Anupam Sibal, Group Medical Director, Apollo Hospitals Group and Sr. Consultant, Paediatric Gastroenterology Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals 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 has respiratory medicine with a significant increase of 314.04%, 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. 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%)”.

Dr Raju Vaishya, Senior Consultant, Orthopaedics, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, New Delhi, one of the authors of the study said, “In the pandemic period of 1 year (April 2020–March 2021), the number of admissions for COVID-19 was 3,746. The number of admissions for COVID-19 cases accounted for 12.09% of the total number of admissions (30,975) in that year. The backlog of patients who didn’t seek care will now be addressed and patients should no longer delay availing care”.