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Study of the Effects of Prioritizing COVID-19 Care on Preeclampsia Hospitalizations

Abstract:

The year 2020 saw the global community fighting the COVID-19 epidemic. To face the pandemic, the Ministry of Health of Ecuador ordered hospital reconversion for meeting the demand of care in patients with COVID-19. As a result, the 'IESS Los Ceibos Hospital' was forced to suspend the hospitalization care of preeclamptic patients from May to September 2020. Thus, the present work considers descriptive and diagnostic analytics to study the effects that the prioritization of COVID-19 care had on hospitalizations for preeclampsia at the 'IESS Los Ceibos Hospital' in Guayaquil-Ecuador. According to the results, there was a rise in preeclampsia cases over the seven-year study period analyzed (2017-2023). This growing trend was strongly interrupted by the prioritization of COVID-19 care. That interruption was also detected as an anomaly in the diagnostic analysis. Moreover, an average request of 67.92 hospitalization beds per month would have been expected in the absence of interruption of preeclampsia care. That detrimental effect that was statistically significant. All in all, these results have allowed us to quantify the effects of prioritizing COVID-19 care on hospitalization for preeclampsia, serving as a basis to avoid repeating drastic measures such as the total interruption of care due to the pandemic.