MEDICAL STAFF REVEAL FACES BEHIND MASKS
access to consultant psychologists.
As well as this, Dr Biswas has been making sure he takes care of his wellbeing at home by ensuring he switches off from work and has been appreciating his downtime taking walks along the Taff Trail.
“My wife is a psychiatrist, which helps because she understands the pressures of working in health care but she also understands the things which I am going through.
“The other thing that worries me a lot, and I think it is the same for any doctor from overseas, my parents are elderly in India.
“I am here, if something happens to them I can’t even go back. I can’t go back to see them or care for them so I am worried about that. But I know they are more worried about me than themselves.”
Dr Karina James works with Dr Biswas as a registrar. The 34-year-old mum-of-two has also adopted wearing a photograph of herself to show patients the face behind the mask.
“We are so used to putting on the mask and visor we forget what we look like. I have definitely noticed how it affects our patients who often have poor sight and hearing. They definitely look to me and smile since we have started wearing the photos.”
The staff on the ward have also been using voice enhancers, which allow staff to talk into a microphone which patients can listen to through headphones.
Dr James said most of the staff have had to make many adaptations to their work and home lives since the pandemic began.
At home, Dr James has used the extra downtime from not being able to go out by reading a lot more, and avoiding social media.
“I found every time I would go on Facebook I would see other doctors discussing coronavirus, it just feels so overwhelming. On my days off, I try not to check my email too, you do have to make a conscious effort.
“I think you need the time to sit and talk about it, but I spend my time in work thinking about it and learning about it. I have tried to put that in the work box and try to force myself to switch off.”
The health board has also arranged mandatory time off for the staff, to ensure they get the much-needed respite.
“My husband is a doctor as well, so we can offload on each other, it’s good because we understand the stress.”
Life for the doctor’s two children, three-year-old Alys and two-year-old Daniel, also looks very different. Dr James, who usually works part time, is now picking up extra shifts.
“On our days off before, you always felt like you needed to be out with them, but now we are at home and spending time together very differently, it makes you realise you don’t always need to go out to spend money.
“And I have got so much better at keeping in touch with people. Me and my husband have been doing a weekly quiz with our university friends, we never usually speak to them this much.”
Dr James, who graduated from Cardiff University in 2009, added how this has shown just how resilient the NHS is.
“There are going to be some positives we can take away from this, like how people are so able to adapt and work on something totally different.”
Clare Wright is in charge of well-being across the Cwm Taf Morgannwg Health Board, and as well as setting up recharge room areas across all their district hospital sites, she has also overseen the introduction of mindfulness and well-being sessions.
“It is about concentrating on the now and not worrying about the future. We are encouraging staff to seek out peer support which we know is very beneficial, to stay active physically which is good for your mental health.
“It is about making sure that staff have enough time to recover when they are not in work both physically, if they feel exhausted, and mentally.”
Clare said they are taking things dayby-day, but ultimately the support they put in place now will have a long-term impact on the well-being of staff.
“We are looking to buy in training on TRiM, a programme that was developed in the armed forces. It is a peer support approach designed to help people who have been through a traumatic event.
“The evidence shows that this peer-to-peer support really works, and we want to make sure that is available for our staff.”
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