E-Paper
Oncologists willing to operate on Covid patients, survey finds
The findings revealed that most of the surgeons were willing to operate on confirmed Covid patients, were taking physical consultation every day, and the eagerness to make the rounds of the patients remained almost the same during the said period
According to a recently published survey from a private hospital in the city, it was found that oncologists were willing to risk their safety to provide surgical care to confirmed Covid patients.
The survey published in the Journal of Surgical Oncology, Wiley, collected responses from 15 onco-surgeons from Ruby Hall Clinic. The survey was conducted between March 22, 2020, and June 30, 2020, when the first lockdown was imposed.
All the surgeons gave their feedback by maintaining anonymity.
The findings revealed that most of the surgeons were willing to operate on confirmed Covid patients, were taking physical consultation every day, and the eagerness to make the rounds of the patients remained almost the same during the said period.
Dr Sanjay Deshmukh, surgical oncologist, Ruby Hall Clinic, said, “We wanted to see how surgeons look at providing healthcare services during the pandemic. The questionnaire proved that most of the surgeons were willing to take the risk to treat their patients despite the higher risk to their safety.”
“The reason why this kind of survey was done is, there was a lot of criticism initially that doctors are not ready to provide care to the patients. We expected that surgeons will be willing to treat their patients and the survey results proved that we were right. We also wanted to evaluate how doctors face a pandemic,” he said.
The hospital was located in Covid containment zones and had many of its staff including nurses residing in the containment zones. However, with proper precautions in place, the hospital was able to conduct necessary oncology surgeries and was also successful in avoiding any major complications.
Out of the 118 surgeries performed by the hospital during the said period, minor complications were seen in 18 cases including, 12 Clavien–Dindo grade I or II complications, six grade III complications requiring some form of intervention. There were no grade IV or V complications. A cancer’s grade describes how abnormal the cancer cells look under a microscope when compared to healthy cells.
There were eight wound infections, three of which required dressings, three required changing antibiotics, and two required operative debridement of the wound. Also, three patients had postoperative delayed gastric emptying, one of which was due to sepsis and required a change of antibiotics.
Two patients were found to be Covid positive before the operation and hence their procedures were postponed. One of them had a chemo port inserted four weeks later while the other patient had an ovarian cytoreduction done five weeks later.
Cancer patients have a higher chance of developing Covid infection due to their depressed immune system as seen in China, said the survey.
The survey reveals that the majority of the specialist preferred the open surgery approach, delayed non-emergency surgeries, and used palliative strategies for advanced malignancy.
The survey also found that majority of the respondents had a decreased income from their surgical practice, and almost half of them said that they would want to change their financial strategies. The survey highlighted that the time spent with family increased significantly and it made the family members quite happy. But almost an equal number of surgeons were unhappy to spend time at home.
