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(CNN) – Health workers have faced risks to their physical health since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Many have contracted it or even died from covid-19.
But the recent suicide of Dr. Lorna Breen, a New York City emergency room doctor who recovered from covid-19, has also highlighted the risks health workers face for their emotional and psychological health. .
“Even outside of the pandemic, you’re talking about a vulnerable population,” said CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. “There is a lot of stress.”
The coronavirus pandemic has created what are known as “second victims,” according to Curtis Reisinger, a clinical psychologist and director of the Employee Assistance Program at Northwell Health in New York. The term refers to health care providers who experience trauma related to patient care.
For example, Reisinger said he heard from healthcare workers saying that covid-19 has prevented them from fully serving the needs of their patients.
“The pain they are experiencing is sometimes wanting to get closer and wanting to help, but they can’t,” he said.
Because the coronavirus is so contagious, families are not allowed in hospitals, and healthcare workers cannot get too close to infected patients, leaving patients alone.
“You can see the fear in someone’s eyes, (but) you can’t hug him, you can’t calm him down,” he said. “They are suffering seeing what they cannot do.”
READ: Physician who recovered from covid-19 and continued to treat infected people committed suicide
Dr. Breen’s suicide
The effect of the pandemic on mental health is most evident in the death of Breen, who contracted the coronavirus while working at the hospital during the pandemic, according to his father, Dr. Philip Breen. She returned to work after a week, which he, in retrospect, said was not long enough.
“I think he felt an overwhelming sense of wanting to help his colleagues and friends who were still fighting the battle, so he took the reins again and came back,” he said.
When he returned to work, he was unable to do a 12-hour shift, his father said. Her friends and family helped her get to her family’s home in Charlottesville, Virginia, and there she was admitted to the University of Virginia hospital for exhaustion, her father said.
After about a week, Lorna Breen left the hospital to stay with her mother, she said. Then, last weekend, he went to stay with his sister and committed suicide on Sunday morning.
“On Sunday, she killed herself because I think she was tired and she was the type of person, as someone very aptly put it, was like the firefighter who enters the burning building to save another life and does not have herself consider. So he has paid the price and has been in the trenches, ”said his father.
Following Breen’s death, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and First Lady Chirlane McCray announced a collaboration between the US Department of Defense. USA, New York Hospitals, and the Greater New York Hospital Association to provide mental health programs for frontline healthcare workers and first responders.
“Our front-line heroes are waging a war on two fronts,” de Blasio said in a statement. “They have gone through a lot to protect their New York compatriots, and we will not allow them to bear the mental cost of this pandemic alone. For those who are struggling: their city listens, we see them and help is on the way. ”
Among all Americans, the suicide rate increased 35% between 1999 and 2018, according to a summary of data released by the National Center for Health Statistics.
Physicians are a profession at risk for suicide, with women particularly at risk, according to a 2019 PLoS One systematic review and a meta-analysis of studies of suicide in healthcare workers.
In addition, a CDC analysis, based on data from 17 states that participated in the 2012 and 2015 National Violent Death Reporting System, analyzed suicides in the US. USA by occupational group. The analysis found that, among all occupations, health professionals and technical occupations had the sixth highest suicide rate among women and the eighth highest rate among men in 2015.
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Constante Constant state of paranoia ’
Health risks, high-stress life or death situations, and long hours in demanding work make medical care a particularly difficult field even in normal times.
But Gupta said the new coronavirus pandemic has amplified those problems to another level because it is new and unprecedented.
“Many times, as challenging as the roles may be, for emergency medical technicians in particular and emergency physicians, there is still a pattern to things. For example, how to do things, how to overcome problems, “said Gupta. “When it comes to completely new, unfamiliar things, that can be really challenging.”
In addition, health workers are at risk of transmitting the virus to their loved ones. Some have chosen to temporarily separate from their families to avoid spreading the disease. The shortage of personal protective equipment, or PPE, has exacerbated those fears, Gupta said.
Last month at Elmhurst Hospital in New York, healthcare workers lived in a “constant state of paranoia,” a person who identified herself as a nurse but declined to be named told CNN at the time.
“We don’t know if we have the virus,” said the person, “and we are so afraid of spreading it to someone else.”
In a social media post last month, a nurse at a large Long Island hospital in New York shared her feelings on social media and said, “I haven’t slept because my mind doesn’t go out.”
The nurse, who said she works in a covid-19 classification area, said the night before was “so far the worst I’ve ever seen.”
The patients came nonstop, he said, coughing and sweating, with fever and “fear in the eyes.” The nurse wrote that she cried in the bathroom during her break, removing the PPE that left indentations on her face.
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“I cry for my coworkers, because we know it will get worse and I already feel that this is impossible and we are already at our breaking point,” he said. “I cry for parents, children, siblings, spouses who cannot be with their loved ones who may be dying but cannot receive visits because they are not allowed.”
Dr. Shahdabul Faraz, a resident physician at the Beth Israel Deacons Medical Center in Boston, wrote for CNN about how covid-19’s hospital policies have led to isolation.
“These policies have an important purpose, but it also means that providers lack adequate peer support. We don’t spend as much time with our colleagues anymore. People have stopped eating together. There are no more meetings or collective breaks, ”he wrote.
“To make matters worse, many of us cannot even find comfort in our homes. Some providers have taken refuge in their basements or garages or have moved entirely in hopes of protecting their families from the virus. ”
CNN’s Elizabeth Joseph and Carma Hassan contributed to this report.
