‘They take on the burden’: health workers’ mental wellbeing suffering amid fourth wave

CALGARY – Alberta doctors and nurses fighting COVID-19 on the frontlines are suffering stress and traumatization at unprecedented rates.

Calls to a healthcare worker helpline for counselling are up dramatically.

Registered therapist Fleur Yumol, who counsels physicians, says what they’re dealing with can even be worse than post-traumatic distress order because they are suffering traumas repeatedly.

“Physicians are not getting a break, they’re having to switch, and, you know, pivot, and, and do different things all the time they get being called to attend to, you know, the greatest need at any given time,” explained Yumol.

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“Burnout among physicians was really, really high even before the pandemic happened and so we’re just seeing kind of what happens to an individual, no matter what you do when you don’t get a break when there’s no reprieve.”

Yumol says frontline healthcare staff is in a particularly tricky spot, because they can’t take any time off to heal or establish some kind of work-life balance due to how dire the Alberta COVID-19 situation is. She calls it “death by 1,000 cuts.”

“What I find with our healthcare professionals, physicians in particular, is that they’re consummate professionals. So, they show up to work, they do what they need to do, they take on the burden, and then it’s at home sometimes where things become really difficult–they’re not sleeping or eating well, they’re not able to connect with their family and friends, in a way that helps them feel less isolated,” she said.

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On top of working under extreme circumstances to make sure they’re caring for anyone who comes into the hospital, they’re also dealing with people who are sick and tired–and whose attitudes might not be all that great.

“There’s a lot of tension out there regarding what’s actually happening in the hospitals and what people are facing… I think doctors, in particular, don’t have time really to talk it through and they just are going all the time, so it is a cumulative piece. It’s the fact that there are other health issues that they’re facing. It’s the fact that there’s a lot of controversy and tension out there around vaccines.”

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Yumol also says doctors are dealing with a certain level of moral distress–when you can’t do your job according to your values and according to what is important to you.

“When a professional is faced with conflicting values and has a strong opinion about–[for example] how people have chosen to either get vaccinated or not–they need to respect that. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t hard for them to honor that, even though they do. So that adds that moral distress of continuing to provide care under such extreme tension, under such extreme pressure, knowing that at the end of the day that there is this kind of misalignment of values.”

She says pressure and trauma will continue to accumulate for doctors and nurses on the frontline and only amplify their exhaustion.