Routinevs Day-Care Surgery in Case of Unilateral Inguinal Hernia in Public Hospital Setting

Day-care surgery is defined as planned investigations or procedures on patients who are admitted and discharged home on the day of their surgery. In this prospective and observational study on 100 patients --50 day-care + 50 routine-care patientswho underwent treatment of unilateral inguinal hernia at Civil Hospital and B. J. medical college, Ahmedabad. Weaim to study and compare the immediate and long-term post-operative complication and patients’ satisfaction between the two procedures (day-care and routine-care) to assess the feasibility of day-care surgeries in government institutes. In the study, 2 out of 50 (4%) day-care surgery patients had to be kept for more than 23 hours. Only 1 out of 50 patients (2%) was readmitted. The readmission rate of 2% is at par with 2-3% recommended by Royal College of Surgeons. The immediate post-operative and at the end of 7 th post-operative day complications were infact lower than routine-care surgery. Majority of patients (94%) were satisfied from the surgery and preferred day-care surgery to routine-care. Also, the success rate, complication rate and patient satisfaction were comparable with specialized day surgical unit treating for inguinal hernia. From our study, we may conclude that even with the shortcomings of the public health care setup of developing nation, the day-care hernia repair can be done without any major immediate or long term complication ascompared to routine-care surgery.