Η επίδραση της πανδημίας Covid-19 στην παροχή υπηρεσιών χειρουργικής ιατρικής
The effect of Covid-19 pandemic on the provision of surgical services
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Keywords
Πανδημία ; COVID-19 ; SARS-CoV-2 ; Χειρουργική ιατρική ; Μη επείγουσες χειρουργικές επεμβάσεις ; ΕπιπτώσειςAbstract
Introduction: COVID-19 is an infectious disease, also known as acute respiratory disease 2019-nCoV, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus type 2 (SARS-COV-2). Due to the high transmissibility, the spread of the novel coronavirus around the world was rapid and the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a "pandemic" officially on 11/03/2020. The global situation could be described as a "state of war", with health professionals being at the forefront of the defence against an asymmetric and unpredictable threat to humanity.
Aims: The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on the health sector and specifically on the provision of surgical medicine services, which according to the WHO has been disturbed during the pandemic.
Material and Methods: A detailed literature review of COVID-19 infection, surgical medicine, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the field of surgery was conducted. Regarding empirical analysis, data from the admissions of the private hospital “Metropolitan General” were utilized. When processing the primary data, descriptive statistical measures, diagrams, and tests of good adaptation of X2 surgical cases are presented.
Results: The findings from the empirical study highlight the remarkable decline in admissions and especially those with a surgical specialty as the treating physician for the March-April-May 2020 quarter. In fact, the greatest reductions in absolute differences are found in ophthalmological, orthopedic, and general surgical cases.
Discussion: The spread of COVID-19 has negatively affected the provision of surgical medicine services and especially the planned non-emergency surgeries. Taking into account the predictions for repeated cycles of the pandemic disease, it becomes necessary to formulate a plan for the management of non-emergency surgical cases.