Study debunks coronavirus hospital fears

Melbourne’s pandemic lockdowns did not stop many of the acutely sick from attending hospital to address urgent medical conditions.

The pandemic lockdowns did not deter many of the sick from attending hospital to address urgent medical conditions such as heart attacks and strokes, according to a new Melbourne study.

Analysis of more than 400,000 emergency department presentations, 370,000 acute admissions and 15,600 subacute admissions at a major Melbourne hospital during 2020 shows many people still sought emergency care during the lockdowns.

Researchers found that, compared with historical evidence, Melbourne’s extended lockdowns did not lead to an overall reduction in people seeking care for urgent medical issues, but fewer of the very old and children had sought hospital help.

The National Centre for Healthy Ageing and Monash University researchers investigated the impact of the pandemic on emergency department attendance in the Frankston-Mornington Peninsula region of Melbourne, finding that the switch to telehealth by GPs had not dramatically hindered emergency attendances.

Led by biostatistician Taya Collyer and epidemiologist Nadine Andrew, the researchers analysed hundreds of thousands of attendances at the hospital in Melbourne’s southeast.

The results were published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health and come after concerns about what impact the pandemic would have on hospital systems in the context of Covid-19 and other illnesses.

The team was also able to apply the latest forecasting methods to generate a picture of what hospital attendance would have looked like without Covid-19. 

The study concluded: “Our analyses suggest citizens were willing and able to present with life-threatening conditions during Melbourne’s lockdowns, and that switching to telemedicine did not cause widespread spill-over from primary care into emergency departments.

“During a pandemic, lockdowns may not inhibit appropriate hospital attendance where rates of infectious disease are low,” it found.

But the study acknowledged that among the very old and younger members of the community, numbers seeking help had dropped off.

“The data showed us the biggest reductions in hospital attendance during this time were among the elderly, children and young people,” Dr Collyer said.

The journal noted that Melbourne – and Australia – had endured relatively lower numbers of Covid-19 infections compared with other parts of the world.

The findings are important because they look at how the extended lockdowns in 2020 impacted hospital presentations.

Hospital admissions and presentations are at the core of government responses to the virus and have driven the implementation of restrictions.