COVID-19 crisis influence on orthopaedic surgery practice

The aim of our study was to compare the work intensity of 2 orthopedic wards before and during the COVID-19 crisis, as well as to analyze individual aspects of work organisation - number of hospitalized and operated patients, their structure, preoperative and total inpatient time. The impact of the crisis on the treatment of isolated skeletal trauma and polytrauma patients was also analyzed. The retrospective study compared the treatment data of two patients units, called the Trauma Clinic and the Polytrauma Clinic, over a 30-day period in March, April 2019 (before the crisis) and 2020 (the onset of the COVID -19 crisis).  In similar periods  in 2019 and 2020, there was a significant decrease in the number of treated patients (from 206 to 143 (30.6%) at the Trauma Clinic, from 42 to 27 (27.2%) at the Polytrauma Clinic. Surgical activity has not changed significantly, as has the age of  patients.The number of men treated in the polytrauma clinic has decreased, the number of women has not changed.In the polytrauma clinic, preoperative time and length of hospitalization decreased by one third, while in the trauma clinic it did not change significantly. In the Trauma Clinic, the decrease occurred in the number of low-energy trauma patients, in the Polytrauma Clinic based on the number of high-energy trauma . The COVID-19 crisis has led to a significant decline in the number of patients treated (approximately 30%) in Trauma Clinic for both isolated skeletal and polytrauma patients. At the Trauma Clinic, the reduction in the number of patients at the expense of low-energy injuries shows the same. The significant reduction in the number of men in the Polytrauma Clinic demonstrates the paradoxical positive impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the total number of serious injuries related to work, household, sports and solid ill-considered risks.