Mariah Taylor (Email) – Becker’s Clinical Leadership
A third of healthcare workers reported symptoms of PTSD related to the pandemic, but nurse aides and other lower-paid healthcare workers said they have been unable to get help for their conditions, KFF Health News reported Sept. 25.
1. COVID-19 killed more than 3,600 healthcare workers in the first year of the pandemic. Many who worked in nursing facilities said they were not provided with proper PPE, leading to dozens of lawsuits. Many lower-wage healthcare workers reported working overtime and going to work sick for fear of being fired if they stayed home.
“I kept telling my supervisor, ‘I am very, very sick,'” Sophia Darkowaa, a nursing assistant who said she now suffers from PTSD and symptoms of long COVID, told the news outlet. “I had like four people die in my arms while I was sick.”
2. PTSD is associated with higher risks of dementia, Alzheimer’s, substance use and self-harm. PTSD and other mental health disorders in healthcare workers tend to stem from trauma at work during the pandemic, including becoming sick, fear of being fired if they don’t come to work, and watching patients die. During the pandemic, many experienced “moral injury” when they didn’t have access to ample resources in order to provide care.
3. Nearly 60% of long-term care workers were paid less than $30,000 annually in 2018. Lower incomes are associated with shorter life spans. Nursing aides and other support roles have less access to mental health treatment and are less able to take time off, relocate for jobs or shift careers due to the low wages.
4. In the early pandemic, there were public displays of gratitude for the frontline workers, but since then, attention has waned. The Trauma Stewardship Institute has “been inundated with emails from healthcare workers considering suicide,” and the numbers haven’t slowed since the pandemic ended, according to KFF.
