Management of Laryngotracheal Trauma During the COVID 19 Pandemic: Our Experience.

Objective To study the outcomes in terms of airway, voice and swallowing as well as the economic impact of the trauma on patients' finances and the constrained health infrastructure due to the pandemic. Materials and methods Study design Retrospective study. Setting : Tertiary care teaching hospital. Subjects and methods: A retrospective study was done of the 19 subjects who sustained acute laryngotracheal trauma during the SARS CoV-2 pandemic and was managed at our institution from January 2020 to September 2021. Results Change in voice was the most common presenting symptom and thyroid cartilage fractures were the commonest cartilage injury noted. It was found that 93% (decannulated) of the patients had good functional outcome and 90% of them required financial support to meet the medical expenses. Conclusion During the COVID 19 pandemic, it was not only, early presentation, timely detection and intervention by the treating team, but also the multidisciplinary teamwork and the support system that facilitated the recuperation and restoration of these traumatized individuals back into society with good laryngeal function.

Covid 19 Pandemic-Training of Healthcare Workers in Obtaining a Nasopharyngeal Swab: Our Experience.

To describe the training of healthcare workers (HCW) in nasopharyngeal swabbing during the COVID 19 pandemic. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective study. SETTING: Tertiary care teaching hospital. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: One hundred and seventy eight health care workers were trained from May 2020 to January 2021. Three modules were designed to train the health care workers in the technique of obtaining a nasopharyngeal swab specimen.Training consisted of an instructional video on how to perform nasopharyngeal swabs and live demonstration followed by hands-on supervised training. The trainees included 30 doctors, 101 nurses, 31 respiratory therapists, 3 physiotherapists, 9 interns and 4 lab technicians. There were 39 male and 139 female trainees. After attending all 3 modules of training, they were confident and efficient in taking a non-traumatic nasopharyngeal swab. Good knowledge and adequate training is key to a good nasopharyngeal sampling for SARS CoV-2 testing.