Praises On One Day, Abuses On Another: Mental Health Of Healthcare Workers Through COVID Pandemic

It has been almost a year and a half since we have been fighting the deadly COVID-19 outbreak. It is only fair to say that we have all been anxious, overwhelmed, stressed, depressed or grief-stricken at some point into the pandemic. You, I and the medical community alike. But somehow, we haven't really spoken about mental health of healthcare workers as much as we should have.

Working on the frontline of the pandemic, care and health workers especially face a wide range of psychological stressors, which may cause both long-lasting effects to the well-being and mental health of workers and affect the quality and safety of the care they provide.

Indiatimes will hold a webinar in collaboration with 'Headspace' on June 23, 2021, on mental health and effects a pandemic can have on our doctors, nurses, hospital staff and medical workers. During the discussion, the primary talking point would be how doctors are called 'COVID warriors' and given that respect only when nothing goes wrong. At other unfortunate times, they are beaten up, abused and disrespected.

We are going to speak to Dr Samir Parikh, Director Of Mental Health & Behavioural Sciences on the need to see how society's response towards healthcare practice needs to be. We will further speak about violence and trolling medical industry goes through.

I believe it is absolutely true. We seldom talk about mental health of doctors, let alone the care that our nurses and other medical workers deserve.

A short film produced by the WHO Regional Office for Europe also shows health care workers talking about the mental health and well-being challenges they have been facing while caring for patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beyond the physical impact of the pandemic on societies worldwide, studies are warning of the negative effects on people¡¯s mental health. The main psychological consequences to date appear to be elevated levels of stress or anxiety, loneliness, insomnia, and depression.

In the film, health workers share their pain over losing patients and emphasise the importance of supporting one another and how the demands of their jobs have taken a toll on their mental health and well-being, resulting in feelings of guilt, worry and stress, insomnia, nightmares, stigma and discrimination.

Another point worth highlighting is that the first wave was more of figuring out how to tackle COVID-19 and second one was actually more of implementation of the learnings. So, through the application of newly learnt medical procedures, it becomes difficult to reflect on your own self, and therefore, the self care becomes tougher.

There is a sense of empathy health professionals carry. But the kind of devastation that the health workers have seen through the last one and a half year and now especially the second wave, there can be compassion fatigue on the part of doctors.

We will also speak to Dr Anant Bhan, Adjunct Visiting Professor in the Centre for Ethics, Yenepoya University, Mangaluru on how sometimes doctors do not have the time to reflect on the loss of patient's family.

The experts' panel will also be joined Dr Pratima Murthy from NIMHANS and Ms Sarah Romotsky, RD, Director, Healthcare Partnership Solutions, Headspace. They will share their understanding of the situation with the viewers.

Ms Romotsky, with her experience in self care for medical professionals, is expected to further elucidate the topic with her insight and suggestions. Her views on inducting mindfulness in daily routine is what the viewers can benefit from.

Do medical professionals deserve a break? Finding answer to this question has led to several prolonged discussion as the medical practice involves both expertise and ethics. Dr Pratima would be there to intervene with her nuanced understanding of the doctors' dilemma.

Speaking of protection of health and care workers¡¯ mental health, it is important to note that many of the doctors had to self isolate. They were living away from their families in order to protect them from the virus, and that is something which isn't taught in medical schools.

The doctors were also not taught how to deal with a pandemic. There is no professional course that comes with a manual on tackling a crisis as such. It is taxing, it requires time, patience and extreme gratitude on our end as a society to enable our health professionals the care they need.

Due to a variety of healthcare challenges that we face now, it becomes imperative for the authorities to develop a special program for the healthcare workers, where their metal health is taken care of.