The story of the New York City ER doctor who died by suicide has highlighted the stress frontline healthcare workers are experiencing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr.Lorna Breen did not have a history of mental illness, according to her father, but after caring for patients and contracting the disease herself only to return to caring for patients, it all became too much.
The fear of the unknown. It’s a phrase we’ve all used, but during today’s COVID-19 pandemic, it’s a term that has adopted real meaning as none of us can be sure what the future holds.
We are living a true day-by-day existence, which runs counter to the human instinct to anticipate and plan.
COVID-19 will forever be remembered for quarantining, working from home and generally isolating from the world.
Today, many of us sit in our homes, at our computers, with children to be educated, pets to be soothed and chaos to be tolerated.
For decades, mental health has been a taboo topic.
We can talk about a family member’s cancer, for example, but not about the depression that keeps a loved one from going to work or the anxiety that makes it difficult for that person to leave the house.
Resilience is important to good mental health and wellbeing.
It helps us to overcome adversity in general and, more specifically, mental health challenges, including substance use disorders. All of us, at some point in our lives, need to tap into resiliency to overcome one obstacle or another.
The anxiety and fear resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic can be profound, and nowhere is that more evident than with frontline healthcare workers.
Working long hours in substandard conditions with patients who are often very ill and highly contagious, they fear for their personal health and that of their families.