How COVID-19 has affected emergent visits to a Latin-American trauma department: Experience at a Peruvian national trauma referral center

Abstract

Introduction: By May 2020, Peru was the country with the third most COVID-19 cases in the Americas. The current study's overall aim was to examine the impact of the current COVID-19 outbreak on the number of non-COVID-related patient presentations to a major national emergency traumatology/orthopedics referral center in Latin America.

Methods: An observational study was performed at one of Peru's main tertiary trauma referral centers, during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Numbers of non-follow-up patients presenting to the traumatology/ orthopedics service were counted and compared between January through April 2019 and January through April 2020; and between the month immediately prior to the Peruvian government's implementation of national lock-down measures (Feb 16-Mar 15; Period 1) and the month immediately following (Mar 16-Apr 15; Period 2). The number of surgery service hospitalizations also was compared pre- versus post lockdown initiation (Period 1 vs. 2), as were patient characteristics and outcomes, like age, sex, discharge disposition, mortality, indications for hospital admission, and COVID-19 status.

Result: Comparing 2019 and 2020, no appreciable differences were detected in the number of patients seen in either January or February. However, relative to March and April 2019, the numbers of patients seen in March and April 2020 (the two months after the first Peruvian case of COVID-19 was detected) were reduced by 55.8 and 88.6%, respectively. Comparing the months immediately pre and post lockdown, the number of service patients declined by 79.9% in April, while the number of hospitalizations declined by 30.9%. The number of admissions for various surgical indications either remained stable or declined in parallel with the overall decline in admissions for all indications except for osteoporotic hip fractures and diabetic foot ulcers (both of which increased proportional to the overall number of admissions) and for hand and foot fractures, both of which decreased.

Conclusion: At our hospital, not all indications for traumatology/orthopedics service utilization declined despite the national government's directive to reduce non-COVID-related consultations and admissions. Some disorders presented with even greater frequency, which must be considered when developing contingencies for the reallocation of healthcare resources during a pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus; Emergency; Pandemic; Trauma.

Fig. 1

Number of non-follow-up patients seen by the hospital's emergency orthopedic trauma surgery service, by month from January through April, comparing 2019 and 2020.

Fig. 2

Example of two treated cases during the implementation of national lock-down measures in our service. a. Hip fracture treated with a total hip arthroplasty. b. Ankle fracture treated with an open reduction an internal fixation.