‘I Can’t Turn My Brain Off’: PTSD and Burnout Threaten Medical Worker

Joe Prince K
May 17, 2020
2 min read

Before Covid-19, health care workers were already vulnerable to depression and suicide. Mental health experts now fear even more will be prone to trauma-related disorders.

The coronavirus patient, a 75-year-old man, was dying. No family member was allowed in the room with him, only a young nurse.

In full protective gear, she dimmed the lights and put on quiet music.

She freshened his pillows, dabbed his lips with moistened swabs, held his hand, spoke softly to him. He wasn’t even her patient, but everyone else was slammed.

Finally, she held an iPad close to him, so he could see the face and hear the voice of a grief-stricken relative Skyping from the hospital corridor.

After the man died, the nurse found a secluded hallway, and wept. A few days later, she shared her anguish in a private Facebook message - “I’m not the kind of nurse that can act like I’m fine and that something sad didn’t just happen,” she wrote.

Medical workers like the young nurse have been celebrated as heroes for their commitment to treating desperately ill coronavirus patients. But the heroes are hurting, badly. Even as applause to honor them swells nightly from city windows, and cookies and thank-you notes arrive at hospitals, the doctors, nurses and emergency responders on the front lines of a pandemic they cannot control are battling a crushing sense of inadequacy and anxiety.

Every day they become more susceptible to post-traumatic stress, mental health experts say. And their psychological struggles could impede their ability to keep working with the intensity and focus their jobs require.

From Author’s Pen:

This is a very important article and shouldn’t be buried by ignorance.

I have the utmost respect for our doctors and nurses an all the medical professionals and first responders.

It’s not just our medical personnel suffering with the repercussions of COVID-19 but it’s also the public outside. And it’s not possible to deal with the constant barrage of media coverage of this pandemic, the stress, and the unrelenting terror of getting the disease and possibly dying from it, without some kind of mental trauma. The most likely lasting effect of this pandemic will be PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) , OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) or some other mental illness. All of us need a counselling and a spend-alone time.