What is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic epoch on IPD (Inpatient Department) hospital admissions in India? - A 41months comparative, quantitative, deductive Cross-Sectional Research Study
Authors: Kumar Dr Piyush , Anupama Advocate 
Published: September 2022

The inpatient department or IPD is the dedicated unit of a hospital/healthcare facility for admitting patients from the OPD (outpatient department), ED (emergency department), or a referred patient usually from lower facilities for a planned care/procedure, for special medical problems that necessitate suitable care and consideration. The index case of SARS-CoV-2 virus infection in India was first suspected (based on clinical grounds) on 27th January 2020, an assumed case of covid-19 in Kerala with a current voyage history of Wuhan, China which was subsequently affirmed as SARS-CoV-2 virus infection positive case by the NIV (National Institute of Virology) situated at Pune in Maharashtra, on January 30th, 2020 as positive for COVID-19. As per the constitution of India Health is a subject matter of state, hence different states had reserved different percentages of beds in pre-existing health facilities for COVID-19 IPD patients, for example, the Delhi government had reserved 50% of pre-existing ICU (intensive care unit) and ward beds for COVID-19 IPD patients. Besides the other factors such as fear etc, mentioned above this new arrangement of hospital care delivery and prioritization of the needs of COVID-19 patients may have resulted in the general cancellations of other IPD patients' elective procedures leading to a reduced IPD number of patients with diseases other than COVID-19, as priority was shifted to COVID-19 admitted patient's and cases. The first author researcher of this study has found unusual prevalence in the figure of IPD (Inpatient Department) hospital admissions during his normal course of duties at health centres throughout the current ongoing COVID-19(coronavirus disease-2019) era. To know about the real scenario a good sample size is a requirement for any epidemiological study. Hence this deductive study was done to confirm whether the COVID-19 era affected the number of IPD hospital admissions (positively or negatively). This study was started and designed to get an answer to the above question. The aim of this 41months comparative, quantitative, deductive, Cross-Sectional Research Study is to assess the direct impacts of COVID-19 on the number of IPD hospital admissions in India (other than COVID-19), across all public/private/rural/urban health facilities of 36 states and union territories registered on HMIS (Health Management Information System) of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India on a cumulative basis. For the 17 months (2020-2021) COVID-19 pandemic epoch, the total mean number of IPD admissions was 5387311 compared to the total mean7435770 numbers of IPD admission for the previous pre-pandemic 2 years (2018-2019). The total mean number of IPD admission decreased by 2048459 numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic epoch i.e.27.55% decrease in IPD hospital admission observed during COVID-19. This research study revealed that there is a significant decrease in IPD hospital admissions for various medical conditions other than COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic epoch which is a matter of concern for policy and decision-makers. A huge number of dead bodies were found floating in the sacred holy rivers of India (especially in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh) during the ongoing COVID-19 epoch. Now it is quite possible that these dead bodies are of people with serious conditions other than COVID-19 who failed to get IPD admissions for treatment and died subsequently without treatment.