The COVID-19 pandemic will put many healthcare workers around the world in an unprecedented situation. How can healthcare workers cope during this time? Here are a few suggestions.
Thanks to Scientific Advisory Committee members Carmen McLean and Katy Kamkar for creating this resource.
Healthcare staff will likely be exposed to many potentially traumatic events and events leading to significant distress and moral suffering. As frontline workers, they are highly exposed to the virus itself. The risk of getting sick and needing to be quarantined or hospitalized, or even dying are ever-present. Many healthcare workers have already lost numerous patients and even colleagues to COVID-19. The dramatic increase in cases has overwhelmed healthcare systems and hospitals are scrambling to secure the resources to meet the need.
As a result, staff may be forced to make impossible triage decisions about how to allocate limited resources to the patients they are caring for. All of these potentially traumatic experiences are occurring in the context of under extreme pressures, including fear of spreading the virus to loved ones, possible separation from family, mental and physical exhaustion, and limited access to personal protective equipment and needed medical supplies.
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