Civic hospitals asked to fast-track elective surgeries as Covid cases dip

The hospitals had kept elective surgeries on hold as doctors and healthcare staff were diverted for Covid-19

Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has directed all civic-run hospitals to fast track non-Covid-19 surgeries that were put on hold due to the Omicron-driven third wave.

Dr Sangeeta Ravat, dean of KEM Hospital, Parel, said each doctors in every department are working extra hours to clear the backlog. (Satish Bate/HT PHOTO)

“The hospitals had kept elective surgeries on hold as doctors and healthcare staff were diverted for Covid-19. With Covid-19 cases down, we have instructed the hospitals to fast-track and bring down the waiting period for elective surgeries,” said Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner.

He said civic-run hospitals witness footfall from patients across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. “Poor people come to us for treatment as they cannot afford treatment in private hospitals,” said Kakani.

Dr Sangeeta Ravat, dean of KEM Hospital, Parel, said each doctors in every department are working extra hours to clear the backlog. “During the pandemic, we had to shift our focus to only on Covid duty and emergency surgeries. Non-Covid patients had to wait. With life getting back to normal, our doctors are trying their best. For instance, we would perform epilepsy surgeries once a week in our neurology department. Now we do it twice a week,” she said.

KEM hospital, which is the country’s only referral centre for Budd-Chiari Syndrome (BCS), conducts 50 BCS procedures per year. BCS is a condition in which the hepatic veins (veins that drain the liver) are blocked or narrowed by a clot (mass of blood cells). This blockage causes blood to back up into the liver, and as a result, the liver grows larger. As per the medical literature, BCS is a rare condition, affecting one in a million adults.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020, the waiting period for BCS patients went up to three months. The gastroenterology department, which manages the BCS cases, conducted several surgeries recently to overcome the backlog.

Dr Aakash Shukla, gastroenterologist, KEM hospital said, “In the first two waves, with lockdowns being stringent, people didn’t step out much for diagnostic tests. We must have missed out on diagnosis in the first two waves and didn’t see many patients coming to us. This time, with things open, we saw more diagnosis and hence the wait list.”

The Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital (known as Sion hospital) has been performing 300-400 surgeries a day. “We have three running operation theatres. Our entire staff is working relentlessly to clear the back-log of elective surgeries that happened because of the pandemic,” said hospital dean Dr Mohan Joshi.

Dr Abhijit Kale, orthopaedic surgeon at Sion hospital said they have 30 to 60 days of waiting period for non-traumatic cases like spine and joint replacement surgeries.

“When Covid cases went up, we concentrated only on trauma cases which were added to the waiting list numbers. Right now, we have around 350-450 non-trauma cases waiting to get operated,” he said. “We have started operating on the non-trauma cases too now,” he said.