A comparison of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on urological surgeries in Japan and Taiwan

Objective: We report the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on urological surgeries and hospital policies at two hospitals in Japan and Taiwan. Methods: We retrospectively surveyed the number of surgeries every 3 months in the Urology Department of Kobe University Hospital (KUH), Kobe, Japan before (January 2019–March 2020) and after (April 2020–September 2021) the COVID-19 outbreak, and in the Urology Department of Shuang Ho Hospital, Taipei Medical University (SHH-TMU), Taiwan before (January 2021–March 2021) and after (April 2021–September 2021) the outbreak, and compared the averages and types of surgery. Results: In Kobe, COVID-19 patients were stratified such that other regional hospitals gave priority to treating COVID-19 while KUH gave priority to treating non-COVID-19 patients. In KUH, the number of surgeries did not change significantly, 237.2 ± 29.6 versus 246.3 ± 20.8 (p = 0.453). In Taiwan COVID-19 patients increased sharply in May 2021, and teaching hospitals in Taiwan were obliged to provide 20% of their total beds for COVID-19 patients. At SHH-TMU, there was a 33.3% drop in the number of surgeries during April–June 2021 compared to the pre-pandemic average. However, no significant changes were observed, 423.4 ± 68.4 versus 373 ± 91.0 (p = 0.298), because of the subsequent success in controlling the COVID-19 infection. Conclusions: The comparison of infection control measures between the two countries revealed that while both KUH and SHH-TMU successfully maintained the number of surgeries, the reasons for this were different for each.