Planned surgeries are getting cancelled at hospitals across Kolkata, either because patients are testing positive for Covid during the pre-surgery screening or doctors and others on the team are down with Covid.
During this period of the year, most people in Kolkata get their planned surgeries and procedures, especially knee and hip replacement, done, said doctors.
But this time, because of the sudden Covid wave, such plans are going haywire.
Officials of most hospitals said mostly emergency surgeries and procedures were taking place.
A student from Durganagar, on the northern fringes of the city, met with an accident while riding his two-wheeler last week and tore a ligament.
He was taken to the RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences.
“He was scheduled to undergo surgery on Saturday but the Covid test returned positive. He had no symptoms,” the boy’s uncle said on Sunday. “He has been advised home isolation for seven days, after which the surgery can take place.”
Sudipto Mukherjee, orthopaedic surgeon at Peerless Hospital, said three patients who were supposed to be operated upon tested positive for Covid and so the procedures had been deferred.
“They were supposed to undergo surgeries for knee and hip replacement and also for fracture. Also, there are at least another five whose surgeries have been deferred because they are scared to come to the hospital now, fearing they would catch the infection. We are asking them to come back at the end of February when the case numbers are expected to come down,” said Mukherjee.
Surgical gastroenterologist Sanjay De Bakshi also had several surgeries lined up but he had to defer them after testing positive for Covid four days back.
“I have mild symptoms and am expecting to get back to work after another three to four days. I had several surgeries like removing gall bladder and hernia deferred,” said De Bakshi.
Hospitals said the planned surgeries were getting cancelled every day. “For the last seven days, about 25 per cent of the surgeries are getting cancelled in every speciality because either patients or doctors and healthcare personnel are getting infected,” said R. Venkatesh, regional director, east, Narayana Health, which runs three hospitals in and around Kolkata.
At Belle Vue Clinic, 90 per cent of the planned surgeries are getting cancelled daily, said Pradip Tondon, CEO of the hospital.
“We are having very high cancellations of surgery every day, not only because the patients are testing positive but also many doctors, operating theatre nurses and anesthetists are in isolation,” said Sudipta Mitra, chief executive of Peerless Hospital.
Metro reported on Sunday that the main concern of the state health department now was the personnel crunch at the hospitals. Many hospitals have temporarily closed departments like renal transplant and physiotherapy.
At government hospitals, too, officials said only emergency surgeries were being done. “Hundreds of doctors and nurses are out of action. So we have asked the medical colleges to keep only emergency services open,” said an official of the state health department.
At Woodlands Multispeciality Hospital, elective surgeries have gone down by 50 percent. “Also, non-Covid patients are not coming to the hospital,” said Rupali Basu, managing director and CEO of Woodlands.
The hospital recently set up 15 more Covid beds. “We have 65 Covid beds now. The 115 non-Covid beds have very low occupancy,” said Basu.