The procedure for surgical operations during Ramadan depends on the patient''s condition and the doctors ’decision. The emergency cases that come to the operating rooms cannot be postponed in all cases, but the non-emergency (cold) cases can be operated on after Ramadan.
The specialist doctors confirm that cases of accidents and tumors cannot be postponed until after Ramadan, as surgical intervention in them is considered the most important step in saving the patient.
Ibrahim Al-Balawi, a consultant oncology, breast cancer, and plastic surgery at King Abdul Aziz Hospital in Jeddah, Dr. Ibrahim Al-Balawi, explains that there are regulations for conducting surgeries in general, but this may differ in Ramadan, as emergency cases such as traffic accidents take place at the same time, and delays may not be possible due to the presence of Abdominal bleeding that warrants immediate surgical intervention.
It is noteworthy that the emergency treatment also applies to cancerous cases, as it cannot be postponed as long as the case is prepared and ready for the operation after the results of the sample appear. As for the cases that can be postponed after Ramadan that do not constitute any complications, yellowness or infections such as the presence of gallstones, these are Surgery can be performed after Ramadan.
The professor of surgery at King Abdulaziz University Hospital in Jeddah, Professor Muhammad Abed Bhatmeh, believes that surgeries are generally divided into three types:
Type 1: emergency operations It is the operations that treat emergency diseases, the only treatment of which is to perform the surgery soon, and its delay entails a great danger that may kill the patient.
And the second type: urgent operations. They are operations that treat diseases that are not urgent but urgent, meaning that if the patient waits for a certain period, there is no harm in him usually from this delay.
And the third type: optional operations. They are operations that treat simple diseases that do not harm the patient often if left untreated. They are divided into two parts, operations that treat diseases that are feared to cause complications, and operations that are not afraid to cause complications.
Dr. Ba Khatmeh points out that urgent operations that can be postponed vary There are operations that can be postponed for a few hours or many, operations that can be postponed even for a month or more, and operations that can be postponed for hours are like operations for abscesses in various parts of the body, so these can be postponed according to the opinion of the attending physician, such as the operation to remove the appendix at the beginning of its inflammation, the fasting It does not harm, so the patient is advised to ask the doctor if it is possible to fast and not give nutrients until the sunset prayer, as for operations that can be delayed until the end of the month of Ramadan, but it is necessary to do such operations as removing the gallbladder because of the presence of stones in it, this if it is not inflamed The patient must take the necessary treatments for this, and in this case also he must ask the doctor if fasting is harmful to him or not, and like the operations to remove tumors that are not advanced or cause complications, delaying them for a month does not usually harm the patient, as well as performing diagnostic endoscopes.
As for the third type of operations, they are elective, and there is no doubt that they can be postponed until after the month of Ramadan, such as inguinal or umbilical hernia operations, and this is if it is feared that it may cause complications, but it can be delayed and fasting does not harm the patient.
