THE current COVID-19 pandemic is the defining crisis of our time and has seized the collective attention of the world. However, the potential collateral damage threatens to add to the effects of COVID-19 for years after the post-pandemic period. 28.4 million surgical procedures will be postponed or cancelled according to a new study published in the British Journal of Surgery.
The research was performed by a global group of researchers known as the ‘COVIDSurg Collaborative’ that rapidly set up the project in record time and formed one of the largest surgical research collaboratives in the world. The study has garnered significant global press interest and the results have been used to inform surgical policy in many countries.
The COVIDSurg Collaborative researchers, including some from the University of Zimbabwe developed a predictive statistical model to estimate the total number of surgical cancellations based on peak disruption of 12 weeks. The data represents the largest dataset of surgical patients during the pandemic to date and was collected from 560 hospitals across 60 countries. 72% of surgeries are expected to be cancelled worldwide including 2.3 million cancer surgeries.
Additionally, every extra week of disruption could lead to an additional 2,4 million cancellations worldwide. In Zimbabwe, the disruption is expected to be significant. More than 9700 operations and almost 970 cancer operations will be cancelled or postponed constituting 70% of potentially life-saving surgical operations.
“The cancellation of surgeries in these large numbers will have a substantial effect on the health of Zimbabweans and will have devastating public health implications.” says Dr Dennis Mazingi, a co-author of the study and surgical trainee at University of Zimbabwe.
“It will take our country almost 2 years to clear the backlog if we work at 110% capacity, but our healthcare system already had pre-existing fragilities before the pandemic so the backlog could therefore potentially last for much longer than that.”
It has been estimated that 5 billion people lack access to safe, timely and affordable surgical care and most of those live in low- and middle-income countries. The pandemic is going to widen this gap in access to care. Those healthcare disparities are responsible for deaths due to easily treatable surgical conditions such as injuries, cancer and congenital diseases in children and are also estimated to lead to almost 12.3 trillion US dollar loss to economic productivity in all low- and medium-income countries.
This data underscores fears that have been highlighted since the pandemic began that the impact of COVID-19 will be felt beyond those of the virus itself. The World Health Organisation has already warned of a higher burden of infectious diseases in children due to interrupted vaccination programs. And the UN has warned of disruptions to pregnancy and antenatal care.
The authors of the paper have emphasised that post-recovery plans should be put in place to mitigate against the negative effects of the massive backlog. There are significant socioeconomic costs of failing to do so.
The research paper can be found at this link:
https://bjssjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bjs.11746
