EFFECTS OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON THE VISITS FREQUENCIES IN EMERGENCY SERVICE SKOPJE

The pandemic caused by the COVID -19 virus has affected human health, consequently the health system and health services, both worldwide and in the Republic of North Macedonia. The idea for this research was therefore to examine the impact of the conditions imposed by the pandemic on the visits of the Emergency medical service in Skopje. For this purpose, the frequencies of visits with transport to hospital and just visits, as well as the frequencies of emergency calls and calls only for transport in the periods: before the pandemic (March 2019-February 2020) and during the pandemic (March 2020 to February 2021) were analyzed. The overall number of visits was further analyzed by categories: age and gender. In the period from March 2019 to March 2021, a total of 49,930 visits were performed, of which 24,115 were performed during the pandemic and 25,815 before. In the same period, a total of 13,835 emergency calls were answered, of which 6,434 were during the pandemic and 7,401 before; a total of 9780 calls for transport of patients were carried out, during the pandemic 5602 and 4178 before the pandemic. The analysis showed that the number of transports was increased and the number of emergency calls decreased during the pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period, while the number of visits during and before the pandemic did not differ significantly. Concerning age and gender, the analysis showed that the number of visits to children, men aged 20 to 40 and women over 60 years was significantly reduced compared to pre-pandemic visits, while there was no difference in other age groups. The contributions of visits related to certain diagnostic and a particular age group are discussed in this paper. We found that the pandemic has not influenced the pace of work, apart from the conditions, only the association between the kind of calls and the diagnoses for which the visits were made has practically changed. During the pandemic, most visits for males and females over 40 were related to COVID diagnosis, while for children, men and women under 40, accidents were the most common cause.