A Report on the Practice of Day Case Surgery at the Federal Medical Center, Owerri, Nigeria

Introduction: Day case surgery is described as admitting a patient to the hospital for a selected elective surgical or diagnostic procedure followed by recovery under observation, then discharging the patient, when stable, to home care. The procedures usually do not require extended recovery time and are performed under local anesthesia, However, if available, general anesthesia can also be provided.

Purpose: This study was performed to determine the nature and number of the various surgical procedures performed in our hospital’s same day surgical service.

Methods: This was a hospital-based cross sectional study of 138 patients treated between July 2007 and June 2008. Data was collected from the time of the registration, during the clinical examination and collection of samples for laboratory study. The data generated was entered into Microsoft Excel 2016 and transported into Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0 Inc. (Chicago, IL, USA). Results were presented as frequencies and percentages for categorical variables.

Results: The General Surgery service had the most cases (86 cases, 62.3%), followed by Pediatric Surgery (17 cases, 19.6%). Orthopedic surgeries were the least number of procedures performed (11 cases, 8.0%). In terms of procedures performed, the most frequently performed procedure was lesion excision (65 cases, 47.1% followed by excision biopsy (20.3%), then herniotomy, herniorrhaphy, hydroceletomy at 10.9%, 4.3%, 3.6% respectively.

Conclusion: Hospital facilities management of resources, staff, hospital infrastructure, continued improvement, and sustainability can be helped by continued self-assessments to aid in choosing and investing in the most relevant technology to control costs and, at the same time, continue to improve clinical care.