ENT Problems in the Time of Covid-19 and Coronavirus

The very mention of Covid-19 or coronavirus sends chills down people’s spines, making them want to reach for a facemask quickly! We find ourselves in very special times during the current Covid-19 (coronavirus) outbreak, where top ENT specialists in Singapore are at the frontline taking care of patients with very common symptoms such sore throat, runny nose, fever, cough, breathing difficulties. The funny thing is, we see these ENT problems all the time at our ENT clinics in Singapore so life isn’t really very different for us when looking after such ENT patients and deciding upon the best care decisions for them. Many of our ENT patients in Singapore suffer from acute conditions such as sinus and ear infections, breathing difficulties, nosebleeds and emergencies such as airway blockage and trapped foreign bodies in the ear, nose and throat. Treating all these ENT conditions are part of the essential services we continue to provide at our ENT specialist clinics in Singapore.

But do you know what’s really changed for us as ENT specialists in Singapore since the Covid-19 outbreak started? We now take extra precautions by wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in clinic, especially when we examine patients’ noses, throats and airways with a nasoendoscope procedure, the workhorse tool of our ENT practice.

This means we have to wear protective gowns, gloves, masks and eye goggles when we perform an endoscopy of the nose, throat and airway. The nasoendoscopy procedure is an aerosol-based one, which means that we run the risk of catching infected viral particles ourselves during the nasoendoscopy. Certainly a risk not worth taking so although it is definitely more challenging to breathe through an N95 facemask and takes more time and effort to gown and glove up, we are now doing this for every patient whom we have to scope.

The real danger is seeing patients during their asymptomatic phase when they may not yet be displaying the more typical symptoms and signs of coronavirus infection i.e. sore throat, fever, cough, shortness of breath. Some patients may also naughtily not tell us about their recent travel history or the fact that they should really be confined at home under their Stay Home Notice (SHN) or worse, quarantine orders. So please tell the truth when filling in your health declaration forms and stay home if you’re supposed to do so. If you’re unwell, you should stay home but if you’re really unwell and need to see a doctor, then of course you can consider going to the Public Health Ready GP clinics or the Accident and Emergency Department to be treated. We will still see you but we will be fully gowned up in PPE.

For some unknown reason, more ill patients have been turning up at our ENT clinic in Singapore recently, suffering from acute tonsil, ear, sinus, nose, throat infections: they don’t fit the typical Covid suspect criteria which our Ministry of Health (MOH) updates daily, but they still need to be seen and treated as they are unwell. Even fishbones stuck in people’s throats still need to be removed, but we now have to take time and effort to fully equip ourselves with the right protective gear before we see such patients in the A&E. So life as an ENT specialist in Singapore still goes on, except with more protective stuff to put on first! Stay safe, stay home and wash your hands regularly, dear friends!

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