Expert presents roadmap for managing ENT emergencies.

Byline: Ashfaq Yusufzai

PESHAWAR -- As the elective services, OPDs and clinic remain closed to ensure social distancing due to Covid-19 pandemic, a consultant has made recommendations for the management of all emergencies of ear, nose and throat (ENT) to avoid complications to patients and safeguard healthcare providers from the virus.

Prof Gharib Nawaz, a consultant at Hayatabad Medical Complex Presently, said that presently only life-threatening emergencies were managed due to Covid-19 pandemic. He said that those recommendations would provide roadmap to do all ENT emergencies without fear.

'Those emergencies, which pose threat to life like airway obstruction, or those that may damage an organ like a simple button battery cell if left alone, can damage ear permanently,' Prof Gharib Nawaz, head of ENT-A ward at HMC, told Dawn.

He said that such procedures were dangerous as those might add to the problems of an already compromised respiratory system and being aerosol generating could cause spread of infection more extensively.

According to Prof Gharib Nawaz, every patient has to be taken as Covid-19 positive during pandemic

'The Covid-19 is spread by droplets. The droplets are heavy, more than five micron and cannot travel in air for more than few feet while aerosol is less than five micron and can cover longer distances in air, facilitating spread,' he said.

Prof Gharib Nawaz said that the lockdown might prolong due to the ongoing infection, but doctors should take care of the patients requiring treatment for their critical conditions.

In general situation, of the total patients coming to hospitals and clinic every day, 30 to 40 per cent are the ones with ENT problems but most of them can wait, however, the emergencies require urgent management and cannot be delayed.

'Covid-19 is an acute complex multi-system disease. It has brought about a paradigm shift in the management of almost all other diseases. During the pandemic, every patient has to be taken as Covid-19 positive while...