TOLL ON DOCTORS’ AND NURSES’ MENTAL HEALTH
that have shuttered, has brought about a mental gloom. Concern of health economists, that the number of people who die due to the economic downturn will be as disturbing as those dying due to the virus itself, is worrying.
Us-based researchers note that groups hit particularly hard by job loss or a decline in earnings are likely to witness an increase in deaths during a recession. Job losses during a recession push people to social isolation, thus graduating into depression.
Very vulnerable to mental sickness during these times are doctors and paramedical staff, who do not have the privilege of holing up in their homes to shield themselves from the virus. They suffer from anxiety of taking care of their sick patients — not to mention the lurking fear of contracting the disease due to lack of personal protective equipment (PPE). For them, it is loneliness on a different level. They miss the companionship of their children, aged parents, and home. The emotional turmoil they undergo, having to give steady stream of reassurances , shallow or otherwise, is taking a toll. Their families are stigmatised, as they are in contact with the infected, and India is seeing cases where doctors and medical staff are harassed and insensitively sent out of rented homes.
Doctors in Italy had to take the most disheartening decision of whom they should put under ventilator and who they should give a pass, that which is most likely to have devastating and lasting psychological effects. This is something that we should save our Indian doctors from.
So, socially D I S T A N C E, NOW, and make each one of their sacrifices worth it.