Trigger warning: this article contains discussion of mental illnesses and a brief mention of suicide
The healthcare field is both one of the most under-appreciated jobs and one of the most rewarding. This article will explore the ins and outs of mental health in healthcare workers.
Most often, patient needs are prioritized over the healthcare workers in most hospital or clinical settings. The lack of help given to most healthcare workers has caused stress levels and even PTSD to become much more common. This disparity has also caused a good amount of nurses and doctors to have to sacrifice their own mental health in order to maintain patient satisfaction.
An article by the CDC explains that the rate of mental illness in health workers is at an all-time high with 69% of physicians experiencing depression and 13% experiencing suicide. This drastic impact on most healthcare workers’ mental health has also caused a strain on the hospitals and their ability to provide efficient care. In fact, since COVID-19, these rates have gone up and along with that, wait times in the urgent care, and emergency department have also gone up. All of this is attributed to the fact that there is a shortage of doctors, PAs, nurses, and other healthcare workers everywhere. During the height of the pandemic, most health workers were made to go through the bare minimum amount of days to quarantine and sometimes even less. This, in turn, caused sicker, more stressed, and burnout healthcare professionals in a global public health crisis.
This lack of awareness of healthcare workers’ mental health has always been an issue, but since the start of the pandemic, it has only gotten worse. Now, most doctor’s offices do not have a full staff as they are deciding the costs and benefits of working in these environments. The healthcare profession is truly a noble job, and all healthcare workers deserve to be treated with great respect and given more attention to mental health. In addition, there are strides being made to start talking about this issue through protests and other forms of speaking out. Across the country, protests have erupted in the form of strikes, walkouts, marches, and rallies. Healthcare workers from all over are acknowledging the issue and that they deserve better, so they are demanding it. Nurses are striving for better conditions and better wages as they are forced to do overtime without compensation. Hospitals overworking their staff has been a constant theme throughout the pandemic as there are more patients than there are healthcare workers. This has caused all the trends we have seen and until action is taken to solve the problem, it will continue to get worse.
Mental health is important for everyone, especially the brave people who save lives and take care of others. They are tasked with helping other people while having to give no regard for their own mental state. It is so important that the system starts helping them and that more awareness is brought to this issue.
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