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Opinion: Nurses face mental health legacy

WeRPN CEO: 'In the stillness of post-crisis life, those who have cared for and protected us will be most vulnerable.'

Opinion: 'Frontlines will process this nightmare for years to come'
Nurses will feel the mental health implications of the pandemic long into the future. Stock/Getty

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared 2020 the Year of the Nurse and Midwife and this week, Canada is celebrating National Nursing Week . When the year began, none of us could have predicted how clearly the critical importance of nurses would be brought into focus as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Every day, nurses are working tirelessly to deliver care on the frontlines of this pandemic. The job is anything but easy. Yet nurses continue to answer the call of duty and do the job they’ve been educated and prepared to do. Nurses and all healthcare providers have dedicated their careers to caring for and saving the lives of others. COVID-19 hasn’t changed that.
While COVID-19 is ravaging the bodies of those who become infected, there is an equally concerning pandemic that is quietly emerging for our nurses and other frontline health care providers — an echo-pandemic of mental health issues.
Ontario’s health care workers are under unparalleled stress, working exhausting hours with limited resources and often without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE). At the same time, they’re struggling with the fear of exposing themselves and their families to the virus. Often, they have been the sole comfort to patients or residents drawing their last breath and for too many, they’ve watched as their colleagues become ill and even die from the virus.

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Nurses are trained in managing a crisis; in taking action in life and death situations and doing everything necessary to overcome a challenge. Far fewer are equally as prepared to manage the mental and emotional distress that comes in the aftermath of a crisis of this magnitude. In Ontario, we are still very much ‘in’ the current crisis, but as the curve continues to trend downward and the pressure on our nurses eases, the emotional burden will inevitably intensify.
We are already starting to see the devastating mental health toll this pandemic is taking in other jurisdictions. Tragically, health care providers in the U.S., Italy and the U.K. have lost their own lives as a result of the immense pressure, anxiety and grief they’ve experienced while working to protect and save the lives of others. Their deaths serve as a sad reminder — and warning — of the secondary crisis that is just as likely to hit Canada’s frontline health care workers.

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This begs the question: how will we care for those who have so selflessly cared for us?
Last week, the Ontario government announced expanded virtual mental health supports during COVID-19, including supports specifically for frontline workers. This is a great step forward, but it’s critical that we recognize those on the frontlines will be processing this nightmare for many months and years to come.
Nurses will be particularly vulnerable to mental health challenges. By the very nature of their job, nurses tend to spend the most time with patients and residents—getting to know them, their life and their stories. For many, they become like family. As such, it is mainly our nurses who have seen the human toll of this pandemic. For them, the devastation will not be easily forgotten. We need robust, long-term solutions to help our frontline workers cope and even overcome the unthinkable emotional, psychological and moral injury they’ve experienced.
When the dust settles and we all go about our “new normal” lives, we must not forget that it is precisely then, in the stillness of post-crisis life, that those who have cared for and protected us will be most vulnerable. That is when we need to care for them.

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Nurses have been there for us in our moment of need. We cannot abandon them in theirs.
 

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