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.