Health-care workers suffering through a pandemic of loneliness
Loneliness has become the silent epidemic within the pandemic. Separated from loved ones, many health-care workers find their isolation with their patients a shared fate.
We choose to live in hotels for fear of exposing others to the virus. Or, if we return home, after elaborate cleansing rituals, we eat and sleep in the spare room, basement or garage. Some of us have not made a meaningful interaction with someone outside of our hospitals since March.
“Make as little contact with the patients as possible.”
Except for that one, the rules from yesterday rarely carry over to the next. In the hospital, where I see patients as a resident physician, not all them have the virus. Still, I hold myself to speaking and gesturing from the door.
One patient, though, is older and hard of hearing. To move closer, I pull down my shield, which sits on my face like a welder’s helmet, and don gloves and a gown — there’s no hiding tired, sunken eyes. Fumbling with an old cellphone, a warm voice comes through on the other end. His daughter, who he hasn’t seen since I met him a month ago, is not allowed to visit him. She has questions. He does, too. The one he most wants to ask, however, is the one he doesn’t.
“When will I see them again?” I want to tell him that the same question gnaws at me. News of an outbreak on the ward, however, reminds me that I threaten the safety of the nest.
Spared an overnight shift, the salute to front-line workers pours through my windows. Most people bring a ladle to a pan. Opposite to me, a young boy on a balcony has a pair of brass cymbals he crashes with abandon. His primal release helps me come down from another day of constantly being “on,” from the grief that can’t be buried any deeper but, for reasons I can’t explain, I force myself to deny. For those few minutes, he drowns out the single heartbeat that echoes alone in the walls of my apartment.
Health-care workers may experience the emotional distress that has fallen on colleagues in other ravaged countries. A survey of nurses and physicians in Wuhan found almost half reporting symptoms of insomnia, anxiety and depression. Experts in the United States predict a similar number will suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Three months later, as we shape a new normal, I wonder if the time has come to reconsider how safely rules can shift; visitor restrictions for our patients, reuniting health-care workers with their loved ones.
When she hangs up, the little bit of light leaves my patient’s eyes. His cavernous room suddenly amplifies his loneliness. I inch toward him and place my hand on his shoulder. He places his wrinkled hand over mine. His grip is strong.
“Everything will be all right,” I assure him.
I stay like this until his hold loosens, and he drifts off to sleep, into dreams with the people he loves.