Abstract
Patients with cancer are at a higher risk of infection with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-COV-2) than the general population. In India, it has become a significant health problem of utmost importance, and India’s Government has issued health advisories. Lockdown brought many unforeseen problems for patients and hospitals, leading to confusion and chaos. The aim of this article is to identify various issues related to our hospital, follow-up, nutrition, treatment and psychosocial issues. Multiple changes were made in the hospital, departmental and treatment policy for cancer patients’ convenience and safety. As India is in the peak of COVID-19, these types of modifications and modifications of treatment schedules will be the ‘New Normal’.
Highlights
The 2019 novel coronavirus’s appearance has been shortly followed with global spread and rise in cases to such an extent that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak as public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020 [1]
Patients with cancer are at a higher risk of infection with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-COV-2) than the general population [2] and deteriorate more rapidly than those without the disease [2]
The COVID-19 pandemic arrived suddenly and was as surprising to patients as it was to oncologists
Summary
The 2019 novel coronavirus’s appearance has been shortly followed with global spread and rise in cases to such an extent that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak as public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020 [1]. Immunosuppression in cancer patients caused by either chemotherapy (CT), radiotherapy or the malignancy itself makes cancer patients more liable to be more vulnerable to COVID-19 than their counterparts [3, 4]. The majority of cancer patients are older and have one or more comorbidities, thereby increasing the risk of death from COVID-19 [5]. The rise of COVID-19 cases brought a flurry of many unforeseen problems for cancer patients, such as already immunosuppressed status, multiple preexisting comorbidities, numerous visits to the hospital and longer treatment duration. A robust and systematic policy has to be followed for the smooth functioning of the cancer facility
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