Otolaryngology Surgical Activity in Tertiary Care Center During the Covid-19 Lockdown
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Otolaryngology Surgical Activity in Tertiary Care Center During the Covid-19 Lockdown Balasubramanyam Atru1 • Mithun Sutrave1 Anita Ross1 • Pratibha C.B1
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Rani George1 • Rhea James1
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Received: 27 July 2020 / Accepted: 14 September 2020 Ó Association of Otolaryngologists of India 2020
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. Keywords COVID 19 Aerosol generating procedure Tracheostomy Triage
& Mithun Sutrave [email protected] 1
Introduction Corona virus disease (COVID 19) is an infectious respiratory disease caused by the novel virus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Initially a zoonotic disease it lead to human to human transmission through droplets which later became a world wide pandemic [1]. As it is a respiratory disease and with evidence of viral load in the upper airway and the symptomatology pattern over lapping with that of common illnesses and most being asymptomatic carriers the otolaryngologist are at risk while performing surgeries of the upper airway which involves high aerosol generation and exposure [2, 3]. 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 lockdown in India was announce from 25/3/2020 to 20/5/2020. With directions and recommendation from government bodies, national and international organisation, and hospital committees the selection criteria for the surgeries were drafted and followed to reduce the exposure to health care professionals. Our hospital being a tertiary care referral centre in southern India has wide array of cases coming from various parts and due to the pandemic the activity of our otolaryngology unit underwent profound changes still ensuring the diagnostic and therapeutic procedures by strictly complying to the directives.
Department of ENT, St John’s National Academy of Health Sciences, Sarjap
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