Essential and mixed surgical dispensations in hospitals have been lagging behind for more than a year due to the coronavirus. In the case of non-essential care, it is already 4.6 years. This is reported by the National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (RIZIV) after an audit.
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Read all the news about the coronavirus in this file.
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To estimate the impact of Covid-19 on the care provided in hospitals, the Hospital Audit Service, a collaboration between the RIZIV, the FPS Public Health and the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAMHP) conducts regular audits. It focuses on the accumulated care backlog and entry time.
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Three types of care are distinguished in the audit: essential care, the delay of which can lead to substantial health damage for the patient; non-essential care, the delay of which leads to no or limited damage to the patient’s health; and finally, mixed care, which may be essential or non-essential depending on the context.
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For the Covid-19 period from March 2020 to May 2021, the RIZIV/INAMI noted building backlogs during the first, second and third wave, and catching up movements between the waves, with an absolute peak in March 2021.
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The first wave (April 2020) saw a major drop in essential surgical supplies, slightly overtaking hospitals during the summer of 2020.
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During the second wave (November 2020), essential surgical dispensations fell to 80 percent from the normal situation and non-essential surgical dispensations to 33 percent.
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From December 2020 to March 2021 there was catching up. “At the peak in March 2021, the number of essential surgical dispensations performed was 118 percent compared to the years before Covid-19. The number of non-essential surgical dispensations was even 127 percent. This catch-up is significantly greater than that after the first wave,” it sounds.
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During the third wave (April-May 2021), the catching-up movement stagnated and the backlogs rose again.
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Vascular surgery (28 percent) and otorhinolaryngology (40 percent) in particular have high care arrears and are not showing any catching up trend yet,” according to the RIZIV/INAMI. There are, however, a number of benefits in kind that are known for their “overuse”. This means that not all these benefits have to be made up in full.
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“We estimate that it will take 1.2 years to make up for all essential and mixed surgical dispensations. For non-essential care, this is 4.6 years, including catch-up from ‘overuse’,” it reads.
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In order to be able to estimate the run-in times, a scenario was used in which an average of 5 percent extra capacity, partly via higher efficiency, can be released compared to 2019.
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