Barriers to Surgery Sample Clauses

Barriers to Surgery. Despite the overall positive reports, there are still some barriers that keep patients from being operated. Barriers to accessing surgery identified by previous studies include cost, time, fear, lack of information about time and place of surgery, lack of transportation, mild symptoms and lack of an escort to the surgery as barriers to accessing surgery (Xxxxxx et al., 2002; Xxxxx & Abiose, 2001; Xxxxx et al., 2012). Several of these barriers (time, lack of information, fear, and mild symptoms) were identified by participants in the current study. For participants in this study, time appeared to be an obstacle to surgery in two different scenarios. First, it was reported to be a barrier if the surgery was being held during the rainy season, which is when all able- bodied individuals also need to be in the field working. Second, the amount of convalescence time was a barrier for women who had no one to assist them at home, especially if they had small children. Some unoperated women identified lack of information about services as an obstacle which led them to missing out on opportunities to be operated. However, in most cases, a lack of foreknowledge of the surgery did not appear to keep patients from undergoing surgery; rather, women found out about the surgery when the surgical team arrived in the village and the decision to be operated was made at that time. Lack of information was also an obstacle if patients had never been diagnosed with trichiasis and therefore did not know to present at surgical opportunities. Health workers may act as barriers or facilitators for surgery, as they diagnose the disease and declare it ready to operate or not. It should be noted that all cases of trichiasis are considered operable (International Coalition for Trachoma Control, 2012), and education can help make both patients and surgeons aware of this. In most cases, patients tended not to question directives given by healthcare workers, whether it was concerning the necessity of surgery or the post-surgical instructions they needed to follow. Thus, when surgeons tell patients that their trichiasis is not “ripe” for surgery, patients may not question this and may not re-present at another opportunity, despite increased risk of blindness. While surgeons may select only severe cases of trichiasis to operate if time or consumables are limited, this may de-motivate patients and allow further disease progression. This can be avoided by better program planning, or by offerin...