Lurking behind health care professionals who fulfill their duties during the COVID-19 pandemic is another potential crisis that doesn’t get the amount of attention it should: mental health.
Health care workers aren’t like many other employees around the country. They can’t stay home and ride it out. They’re treating patients, dealing with shortages in protective equipment, trying to make sure their own families are safe and sometimes even being that last voice of comfort a patient hears before they die from the disease.
Donna Burks, associate chief nursing officer of Eskenazi Health Primary Care, said this difficult time has made her and other nurses feel “crippled.”
Guidelines to protect patients and hospital staff mean there isn’t as much interaction with patients. Parts of nursing just aren’t normal anymore.
“It just makes you feel very distant,” Burks said.
In New York City, at least two health care workers — an emergency medical technician and emergency physician — died by suicide after working in the thick of the worst COVID-19 outbreak in the country.
A recent study from Well Being Trust found as many as 75,000 additional people could die from “deaths of despair” — a term that encompasses suicide and deaths related to substance abuse — over the next decade as a result of the grief caused by COVID-19.
The study was not peer-reviewed, meaning other experts haven’t evaluated the work.
Burks, who has the additional responsibility of overseeing other nurses, sometimes starts her day at 5:30 in the morning and goes late into the night.
She’s been doing virtual workouts and takes walks with her husband three or four times a week to help de-stress
“We are 24/7, but I love it,” Burks said.
Clarence McNair Jr., who has a new book out about the importance of paying attention to mental health, said it’s important for people in stressful situations to get the right perspective and not let thoughts travel too far into the future.
“Sometimes you just have to take it step by step,” he said in an interview. “One of the things that causes a lot of mental stress among people is when we put ourselves in a position to figure out what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
McNair wrote his book — “Give it One More Try” — after losing a record deal in the early 2000s and dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues.
For those who aren’t working on the front lines during the COVID-19 health crisis, McNair said it can be helpful to just talk with those who are.
Ask how they’re doing or just have a normal conversation, anything to provide the positive human interaction that can be difficult to come by right now.
Contact staff writer Tyler Fenwick at 317-762-7853. Follow him on Twitter @Ty_Fenwick.
Volunteers assist at a new COVID-19 testing site at Eastern Star Church. (Photo/Curtis Guynn)
