Prague hospitals postponed operations due to the covid pandemic. Some delays still haven’t caught up
“Due to the covid-19 pandemic, elective surgery, especially endoprosthesis of large joints, has been suspended,” said FN Motol spokeswoman Pavlína Danková. During the pandemic, the hospital provided only emergency procedures, after the end of the restrictions, postponed operations were a priority.
According to the hospital’s website, waiting times for joint replacements are six to 12 months. “A key factor affecting waiting times for surgery is the lack of mid-career staff, especially nurses. This long-term fundamental problem of the units is the operation of the clinic, inpatient wards, capacity of intensive care and operating rooms,” she explained.
According to Eva Libigerová, not even Bulovka University Hospital has caught up with the slippage in certain operations due to a large shortfall in deferred care. “The shortest waiting time for endoprostheses is six months in case of health complicationsotherwise, you’ll have to wait up to a year,” ČTK reported. According to spokeswoman Tereza Romanová, neither the Královská Vinohrady University Hospital nor the University Hospital of Královská Vinohrady could catch up with total endoprostheses, nor did it succeed in other care.
According to spokeswoman Marie Heřmánková, the general university hospital managed to make up for the delay in about a quarter of a year after each covid-19 wave ends. “In general, we postponed those procedures that could be postponed. That is, they did not threaten the patient’s life, she did not suffer from pain, there was no acute oncological disease and the like,” said ČTK. However, according to the waiting list, the hospital does not perform hip and knee joint replacements, which were among the most frequently postponed operations.
According to spokesperson Martina Dostálová, Na Homolce Hospital had to postpone an average of 30 percent of the total volume of care provided since October 2020. The hospital did not postpone procedures for acute cardiovascular, neurological and oncological diseases. “Due to the fact that during the covid pandemic, we accepted patients from other regions, our oncology operations increased in particular,” she told ČTK when asked. According to her, the hospital managed to make up for the outages, with the replacement of large joints taking about seven months.
According to spokeswoman Jitka Zinke, the Central Military Hospital in Prague is postponing deadlines caused by the epidemic, but operational problems caused a fire in one of its pavilions in August this year. “Now the waiting times for deferred procedures are as normal as they were before the epidemicspecifically, for a total endoprosthesis of the knees or hip joint, they are in the range of six to nine months,” she said. According to her, at the height of the epidemic, it was even 14 months.
Operational problems at the hospital caused the fire in August. For example, the eye clinic, which was located in the affected building, has a 10 percent lower capacity for procedures and waiting times have thus slightly increased, similar to the clinic of otorhinolaryngology and maxillofacial surgery (ENT). “Planned deferred services have an order period of approximately two to four weeks longer than normalbut even so, wait times are in the range of six to nine weeks,” added Zinke
General University Hospital in Prague
Author: Profimedia
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