Stressful to be Exposed to Human Suffering and Death

Stressful to be Exposed to Human Suffering and Death
Introduction
During the pandemic many healthcare workers reported burnout and poorer mental health that before the pandemic. More than 60% of them reported that the pandemic affected their mental health negatively CITATION Hai21 \l 1033 (Mensik, 2021). A further 13% of the surveyed HCWs(health care workers) respondents reported that they were accessing mental health services CITATION Hai21 \l 1033 (Mensik, 2021). There is a big difference between those who reported being affected by the pandemic adversely and those who accessed mental health services. Those who have been unable to access mental health services have cited busy schedule, inability to get off-time at work, feeling afraid or embarrassed and not being able to afford the services CITATION Hai21 \l 1033 (Mensik, 2021). One of the ways to reduce the number of HCWs unable to access mental health services is to avail them for free. This will remove on the major barriers to helping HCWs access mental health services CITATION CDC18 \l 1033 (CDC, 2018).
It is stressful to be exposed to human suffering and death. Patients suffer from different ailments and compassionate HCWs cannot help but resonate with them. For example, children ailing from terminal diseases like cancer, patients on palliative care, very ill patients hospitalized in ICU, arson, accident and terrorism victims. All these factors can take an emotional toll on the HCWs and affect their mental health. All these illnesses and death is traumatic to the HCWs and they develop it in their line of work CITATION Nia16 \l 1033 (Nia, Lehto, Ebadi, & Peyrovi, 2016). Free mental health services should be availed to them because it is like an occupational hazard CITATION Dim18 \l 1033 (Chatzigianni, Tsounis, Markopoulos, & Sarafis, 2018). If other professions provide safety equipment for their workers to protect the workers from work- related injuries, then HCWs deserve to be protected from work related injuries. Mining workers have to wear specific type of boots, helmets, gloves and they are insured against work related injuries. Similarly, healthcare workers ought to be protected from mental trauma that emanates from the nature of the work they have to deal with. Witnessing death, patients on palliative care, accident and terrorism victims, burn victims etc carries and emotional trauma on all HCWs. However, much they are exposed to these things, they cannot ‘get used’ to them because it is a different person suffering each time and they can relate to their pain CITATION Nia16 \l 1033 (Nia, Lehto, Ebadi, & Peyrovi, 2016). Additionally, HCWs work long hours at times, they have different shifts that can make them miss important events in their families, they have to take extra care to protect themselves from contagious diseases and infecting their family members etc. These events leave emotional scars and it is only fair that they are protected or treated for such CITATION Nur20 \l 1033 (Çelmeçe & Menekay, 2020). Thus, free mental health is aimed at treating HCWs for the ‘injuries’ they suffer in their line of job. The mental services should be free just as other workers in other industries are offered safety ...