Impact of a major sporting event on local orthopaedic service provision: Commonwealth Games 2018, Gold Coast, Australia

Background The Gold Coast (Queensland, Australia) held the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Previous studies have focussed on the socio‐economic and employment impact of hosting a major sporting event; however, there is limited research available about the provision of medical recourses required of the host city. Methods Twelve weeks of data were retrospectively collected from the local health service to quantify the orthopaedic department workload for the period surrounding the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Data collected included referrals to Orthopaedic Fracture Outpatient clinic, theatre cases – emergency and category 1 (scheduled trauma) performed, and entries made into electronic medical records by the on‐call orthopaedic staff. Results A statistically significant increase was found for theatre cases performed during the Commonwealth Games (86 versus 71 cases per week, P = 0.033, 95% confidence interval 1.46–27.5). We found no statistically significant increase in Fracture Outpatient Clinic referrals or medical record entries between peri‐games and games periods (P = 0.149 and 0.699, respectively). Conclusion Based on our experience, orthopaedic departments should plan for an increase in operative intervention requirements of at least 20%, in consultation with other local services. Strategic use of pre‐existing resources and staff may be sufficient to address the increased workload during the event period. The allocation of medical recourses during major sporting events is a difficult problem for host cities. Based on our study Orthopaedic departments should plan for an increase in operative intervention requirements of at least 20%, in consultation with other local services.