The spread of novel coronavirus across many countries associated with the high mortality rate challenged the nations by several means. One such unacknowledged issue has been the mental and emotional health of healthcare workers.
Our healthcare professionals are dedicated to the point where they see people at their most vulnerable every day. They’ve been trained to deal with medical emergencies, respond rapidly in times of emergency, and remain calm under pressure. But the recent pandemic’s harsh outcomes made our healthcare staff suffer manifolds.
Precipitating Factors
COVID-19 has put the healthcare employees’ resiliency to the test in ways they haven’t seen before. The pandemic had an unprecedented impact on the mental and emotional health of our frontline workers. The elevated levels of stress, the trauma of seeing casualties, and moral injury contributed to depleting health of the workers. 52.8% of the healthcare workers in India were reported to have Covid-19 pandemic-related burnout. Both doctors and nurses were found to have greater levels of irritability than the other workers.
In total, 41.9 % of health workers reported anxiety symptoms, 37.5 % had depression symptoms, and 33.9 % had insomnia symptoms. The health condition that health workers confront was linked to an increased risk of having anxiety, sadness, and sleeplessness symptoms. Nurses were substantially more likely than other health workers to report anxiety symptoms. Healthcare workers suffered from PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder)
The lack of hospital beds and oxygen cylinders lead to an increase in death rates which is perplexing the medical profession. Healthcare professionals saw not only their patients but their co-workers being caught with the deadly virus which caused a direct impact on their mental health. However, their commitment levels for their profession made them go on, facing every challenge head-on.
Continuing to work in these hard situations, they are constantly witnessing the pandemic’s direct effects as it sweeps throughout communities. With the second wave being even more infectious than the first one, it resulted in more cases, thus increasing the workload on the healthcare workers.
Apart from the challenges at work, the anxiety of losing a loved one, restricted movement, being away from family, working long hours in PPE kits and uncertain future added to the anxiety of the healthcare staff.
Some common outcomes of such stressed healthcare staff were:
- Unable to perform duty with 100% efficiency
- Losing jobs due to inefficient working
- Severe staff shortage
- Bitterness with the family
- Bickering between co-workers
The situation really went to a tipping point when suicides were reported to increase amongst the healthcare staff due to the elevated levels of trauma and stress.
Addressing Issues and Offering Help
In such situations, perseverance of the health worker’s mental and emotional health becomes of primary importance. It is critical that healthcare personnel should be given proper resources in order to deal with the mental health consequences of their jobs.
It’s crucial to realize that everyone will react differently to these impacts and their recovery will vary as well.
A number of doctors and psychiatrists have launched a dedicated helpline for healthcare workers to address stress, depression, and post-stress trauma.
The Global Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (GAPIO) is one such prominent name behind this initiative.
The following are some suggestions for how healthcare and other frontline employees can handle their mental and emotional health:
- Give yourself enough time away from work to rest physically, emotionally and mentally.
- Be well-prepared to deal with these difficult circumstances.
- Make it a point to talk about how you’re feeling each day — both the good and the terrible – while also celebrating small achievements.
- Reach out to a trusted counselor or mental health expert when things start to feel unbearable.
- Provide empathy and support to your employees.
The Employer’s Role
While healthcare workers should follow this advice, hospital management is also responsible for their well-being and make any necessary changes to put them at peace during this challenging time.
The most prominent gap for such a situation was “lack of medical staff”. It is the moral duty of the hospital to hire new staff at the time of such unforeseen circumstances to keep equal work distribution leading to better patient care as well.
More than ever, healthcare facilities require a significantly stronger and more stable workforce. Choosing and employing qualified specialists, on the other hand, is not an easy task. To screen through thousands of applicants needs excellent hiring abilities.
This is when IFANglobal can help you. We can assist you to speed up this time-consuming procedure. We’ve developed our own tried-and-tested algorithm based on our years of expertise hiring. Aside from that, we have a considerable database of healthcare workers which will certainly speed up the process of hiring.
Apart from permanent staffing, we offer employment flexibility through temporary staffing solutions where you can hire nurses for 12 days in a month with zero recruitment cost.
Initial screening and interview are all taken care of by IFANglobal. This reduces the hospital’s time to hire a new staff member.
At IFANglobal, we believe that the mental and emotional well-being of healthcare workers should not be overlooked. However, in order to combat this, both the healthcare industry and its employees must take the required steps to prevent it from becoming a major issue. Please contact us because we are eager to help you in any way we can within our domain. Get in touch for a once-in-a-lifetime hiring opportunity!