Impact of Covid-19 pandemic on general surgery

Abstract

The covid 19 pandemic has caused major health problems all over the world. In addition to the mortality and morbidity experienced due to people being infected, the filiation measures taken throughout the pandemic have also caused disruptions in healthcare, especially surgical interventions. In our study, we aimed to retrospectively evaluate the effects of the pandemic in the general surgery service. Outpatient clinic and operating room data from 2018 were compared with data from 2021. Information about the patients was accessed from the hospital information system. Emergency surgeries were excluded from the study. During 2018, 50632 patients applied to the outpatient clinic, but we saw that this number decreased to 34629 in 2021. While the average age of patients who applied to the outpatient clinic in 2018 was 43.23±16.26, it was 45.7±17.94 in 2021 and was statistically significant (p<0.001). The number of electively operated patients was 1806 in 2018 and 757 in 2021. Considering the average age, the average age of the patients operated on in 2021 was significantly higher than the patients operated on in 2018 (p = 0.046). Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, services were reserved for Covid patients, elective operations had to be postponed, and surgeons and auxiliary healthcare personnel had to work in these services, which caused the delay in elective operations, thus causing disruptions in healthcare.

Keywords

• covid 19
• pandemic
• general surgery

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