[Surgical experience and statistics at a rural hospital in San Luis Potosí, Mexico]

Worldwide, rural hospitals are a second level of health care for populations with <50,000 persons. On average, they perform 1000 surgical procedures with a mortality rate of 2%, assist in the transfer of patients (30-50%) and treat a wide variety of illnesses amenable to surgical treatment, depending on the prevalence of the disease in each community. Our objective was to describe the analysis of the performed surgical procedures in a rural hospital in San Luis Potosi, México.

This was a retrospective, observational, descriptive and transversal study. We collected data from the clinical files of all surgical patients of the General Surgery, Obstetrics/Gynecology and Orthopedics Departments from January 1 to December 31, 2007, analyzing mean age, number of surgeries, types of illness, morbidity and mortality.

Of the 5544 discharges, there were 1508 surgical patients (27.2%) with an 80% female predominance and obstetric patients (57%). Mean age of the patients was 44.8 years. There were 86 different procedures performed. The most frequent procedures were total bilateral oophorectomy (36%), cesarean section (17%), inguinal hernia repair (6%), and cholecystectomy (4%), among others. From all the procedures, 51% were ambulatory, 11% trauma and 6% pediatrics. Morbidity was 0.76%, mortality 1.1% and the transferred patients represented 8.9%.

Outcomes of the rural hospital exceed the expectations of a second-level of health care and include participation of the trauma and pediatric surgery departments, with 86 different surgical treatments performed.