Effect of Lockdown in Surgical Emergency Accesses: Experience of a COVID-19 Hospital.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND/AIM: SARS-CoV-2 pandemic imposed extraordinary restriction measures and a complete reorganization of the Health System. The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on emergency surgical department accesses. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients admitted to surgical emergency departments was retrospectively recorded during the Lockdown (March 11, 2020-May 3, 2020) and compared with the same number of days in 2019 and immediately before Lockdown (January 16, 2020-March 10, 2020). Diagnoses, priority levels, modes of patient's transportation, waiting times and outcomes were analysed. RESULTS: During the lockdown phase, we ob-served a reduction in the access to emergency surgical departments of 84.45% and 79.78%, com-pared with the Pre-Lockdown2019 and Pre-Lockdown2020 groups, respectively. Patient's transportation, hospitalization and patients discharge with indications to an outpatient visit, waiting and total times exhibited a significant difference during the lockdown (p<0.005). CONCLUSION: We observed a reduction of surgical emergency accesses during the lockdown. Implementing the use of the regional systems and preventing overcrowding of emergency departments could be beneficial for reducing waiting times and improving the quality of treatments for patients.