ABSTRACT
Objective: During the COVID-19 pandemic, surgical practice is greatly changed. This study was done to see what changes have been made in the surgical practice by the surgical consultants and residents in various surgical disciplines. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: The Children's Hospital, and the Institute of Child Health, Lahore. It was conducted during May 2020. Materials and Methods: A Survey form was developed on the 'Google Forms' application and distributed to surgical consultants and residents. The submission was received online during May 2020. The collected data were entered and analyzed using SPSS V.23. Qualitative data were presented as frequencies and percentages. Quantitative data were presented as mean and standard deviation. Results: Overall, 272 consultants and residents from 45 teaching hospitals from Pakistan and around the world participated in the survey. Among the participants, 100 (36.8%) were surgical consultants and 172 (63.2%) were surgical residents. About 42% of participants were not performing elective surgeries during this pandemic of COVID-19 but almost all participants were performing emergency surgeries (93%). Over 60% of the respondents admitted that their practice is either reduced to more than 50% or completely shut down during this pandemic. Over 80% stated that their training activities were compromised due to the pandemic. Conclusion: COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected surgical practice both in the public and corporate sectors. Elective surgeries are affected the most in addition to the suspension of training activities of the residents.
ABSTRACT
Objective: To identify the Psychosocial effects of COVID-19 pandemic on health care workers of a tertiary level pediatric hospital. Methodology: This is a cross-sectional study done at The Children's Hospital and the Institute of Child Health, Lahore from 1st April to 15th April 2020. A questionnaire was circulated among health care workers of the hospital and responses were analyzed with SPSS V. 23. Results: The questionnaire was filled by 989 hospital employees but 914 forms with complete were analyzed. Most participants (75%) were younger than 40 years of age. The male to female ratio was 1:1.5. There was almost equal participation of married and unmarried medical personnel (52% vs 48%). Regarding concerns about personal and family health, 544 (59.5%) were deeply concerned about their health, but the concern was far greater about their families (672, 73.5%). The fear of going home was expressed by 629 (69%) participants. Regarding employee protection using personal protective equipment (PPE), 680 (74.4%) hospital workers were dissatisfied. Wearing a protective suit and gloves were the precautions frequently cited as most bothersome (38.8%). Over 65% of workers felt anxiety while dealing with febrile patients. Over 60% of health care workers cited religion as their main source of coping with psychological impact. Conclusions: Health care workers experience a great deal of psychological implications of the COVID-19 pandemic related to the uncertainty of the disease behavior, associated comorbidities and risk factors in the health care workers, and healthcare-related local policies.
ABSTRACT
The whole world is passing through an unprecedented time during the pandemic of COVID-19. COVID-19 has affected all of medical practices in relation to patient management, availability of resources, logistics, safety and protection of healthcare workers and off course emergency management of healthcare facilities. Although surgeons are not frontline workers but provision of emergency and urgent surgeries without knowing status of patient in relation to COVID-19 put the surgical team at risk. Moreover our operative healthcare settings are not designed to deal with paradigm of COVID 19. We are living in a 3rd world country. Our resources are scarce and our theater settings are not up to mark. This article deals with suggested changes in already existing theater facilities or creating new facilities to come up with new requirement of COVID-19.