Admissions and surgery as indicators of hospital functions in Sierra Leone during the west-African Ebola outbreak.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In an attempt to assess the effects of the Ebola viral disease (EVD) on hospital functions in Sierra Leone, the aim of this study was to evaluate changes in provisions of surgery and non-Ebola admissions during the first year of the EVD outbreak.

Methods

All hospitals in Sierra Leone known to perform inpatient surgery were assessed for non-Ebola admissions, volume of surgery, caesarean deliveries and inguinal hernia repairs between January 2014 and May 2015, which was a total of 72 weeks. Accumulated weekly data were gathered from readily available hospital records at bi-weekly visits during the peak of the outbreak from September 2014 to May 2015. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare weekly median admissions during the first year of the EVD outbreak, with

SUBMITTER: Bolkan HA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6230245 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature