MHM Magazine

psychological support. This reminded me of a doctor who told me she didn’t like the media calling her a hero. HCWs were not heroes, she said. They were simply doing their jobs, under extraordinary pressures and with limited resources, and by calling them heroes it took attention away from the fact that they’re suffering – emotionally, physically, and socially. Many others echoed her sentiments and called on government to put their money where their praise was. Hire more staff. Buy more ventilators. Procure vaccines faster. Offer psychosocial support to frontline staff. These pleas for assistance were reminders that HCWs are humans – not superheroes with superpowers – and need help like anybody else. Indeed, HCWs are not treated like heroes. Quite the opposite. Steven Taylor, at the University of British Colombia in Canada, led a study on the public’s attitudes towards HCWs during Covid-19. He surveyed 3551 people in the US and Canada and concluded that fear and avoidance of HCWs is a widespread, under-recognised problem. In fact, over 25% of respondents believed that HCWs should have severe restrictions placed on their freedoms, such as being kept in isolation from their communities and their families, and over a third of respondents avoided HCWs for fear of infection. Paradoxically, other research showing support for HCWs (like the clapping and cheering outside hospitals) was unrelated to whether they held stigmatising attitudes. We must therefore not downplay the emotional turmoil this causes for HCWs, who contend with daily occupational demands, in addition to stressors in their community. Ironically, HCWs reluctance to ask for psychological help also has to do with stigma of feeling judged by their colleagues for not coping. Many HCWs pretend to be okay and brush off anxiety and suppress trauma. HCWs are often socialised early on in their careers into an unhealthy system in which they are socially rewarded for staying silent about their suffering. And herein lies another problem. We must disrupt the discourse around HCWs mental health that relies on an unspoken code of secrecy that says, “Leave us alone, we’ll cope with this individually, silently, in our own way”. This catalyses a vicious cycle of isolation and mental distress. Covid-19 must change this - dramatically. Conversations about mental health need to come out of the shadows and into the forefront of our everyday language. When a nurse says she feels stigmatised by her uniform, or when a doctor is burning out because they’re afraid to ask for help, it highlights the challenges of protecting our most valuable and vulnerable human resources right now. Stigma is dangerous. If we can’t care for our health workers, then we’re failing in our response to this pandemic. Suntosh R. Pillay is a clinical psychologist at King Dinuzulu Hospital Complex in Durban and is an executive member of the Community and Social Psychology Division of the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA). He is currently helping coordinate the Healthcare Workers Care Network in KwaZulu-Natal. To get professional mental health support call 0800 212121. References available upon request Issue 2 | 2021 | MENTALHEALTHMATTERS | 3 MHM visit our website www.ihpublishing.co.za