Role of Urgent Referral Clinic
To the best of our knowledge, the guidelines for the outpatient
department for suctioning facilities in otolaryngology clinics are
nonexistent locally as well as internationally. The benefit of
suctioning facility in the outpatient clinic has yet not been
established before. The role of this clinic is in decreasing the burden
of referrals, reducing patients’ misery of going to the ER for
suctioning, and improving patient satisfaction. This audit is aimed at
providing the foundation to fill this void in the guidelines of
Otolaryngology OPD services. This fundamental audit will help in
establishing the necessity of suctioning facility in otolaryngology
clinics that has been neglected in the past. This ideology can be
extended to the primary and secondary care centers in developing
countries and tropics where poor living conditions and lack of adequate
personal hygiene precipitate an enormous number of out-patient burdens
in ENT clinics. Primary healthcare can play a role in reducing referrals
to tertiary care. So, they should have an improved local service as
stated in [13] to reduce the workload of tertiary healthcare
centers. The accessibility of primary healthcare makes it the prime
cornerstone of the healthcare delivery system. So, this audit reinforces
the mandate of suctioning facilities in OPD clinics with adequate
training of the professionals.