| Author | Frank P Calleja |
| Abstract | During 2006, a total of 5024 patients, including newborn infants and day cases, were discharged from Gozo General Hospital. These patients used 21618 days of care. The overall average length of stay was of 4.3 days. Of all patients discharged from hospital, 20.5% were 75 years of age and over. 51.3 % of all hospital admissions were of an emergency nature. Private referrals to hospital (from private General Practitioners) accounted for 23.3% of all hospital episodes. 38.2 % of cases were self referred. 5.6% of all hospital admissions were due to injuries. 47.4 % of these were due to accidents which happened at home; 14.8% were due to recorded traffic accidents, and 4.9 % were due to accidents which occurred at sea or on the sea side. 93.9% of discharges were discharged home. 0.9% of discharges were discharged to a Government geriatric hospital or to a private residential home. 2.99% were deceased while in hospital. Approximately 60% of the deaths that occurred in hospital were the result of diseases of the circulatory system or malignant neoplasm; however only 9.63% of discharged patients had a main diagnosis of either of these two disease categories. Besides spontaneous vaginal delivery, chest pain and other lower respiratory tract infections were the leading diagnoses for discharges during the period of this report. The latter two diagnoses accounted for 165 and 163 discharges respectively and together made up 6.5% of all main diagnoses. At least one procedure was performed on 43.8 % of patients discharged from Gozo General Hospital in 2006. 91.8 % of these procedures were of a surgical nature. The rest of the procedures were of a non surgical nature. Approximately 28.1% of all surgical procedures were performed on patients who were 65 years of age or older. Obstetric procedures (episiotomy, Caesarean section, and repair of obstetric laceration) accounted for 9.7 % of the surgical procedures performed on hospital inpatients. |
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| Key words | length of stay, admission, days of care, discharge, accident, residential home, Gozo, leading diagnosis, health information |