Covid: Healthcare worker burnout

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2021

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A year of crisis has taken a toll on those tasked with caring for the sick and elderly. It’s almost a year since the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic. Manuela Saragosa revisits three frontline health care workers who she spoke to last year, about how they have coped. Dr Ma, a geriatrician in Hong Kong plus a care home worker in Spain and Dr. Laura Hawryluck, Associate Professor of Critical Care Medicine at the University of Toronto and an ICU doctor herself. Laura tells us of the strains and physical scars of the past year. And Elena Rusconi, Professor of Psychobiology and Physiological Psychology at the University of Trento, explains the results of a survey she and colleagues conducted on care workers in Northern Italy last year, which found that almost half had symptoms of moderate-to-severe anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Remember if any of the issues in today’s edition affect you, do seek the help of a professional mental health body if not a doctor or friends and family.

Producer: Frey Lindsay

(Picture: Dr. Laura Hawryluck in her ICU equipment. Picture credit: Laura Hawryluck)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. I'm Manuel Sara Rossa. Coming up, what the past year of the COVID pandemic has been like for healthcare workers. It's a story of anxiety, burnout and grief. Some of the stuff that's been really hard for us is the people who don't believe COVID exist and those are
0:22.4	still out there. You know, the people who are anti-maskers, you know, we don't like lockdowns either.
0:29.6	It's almost a year since the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic.
0:35.8	We speak to those on the front line. How have they coped?
0:39.3	We don't know if there's going to be a new rise in the infection curve. And this keeps a person
0:44.4	in a state of constant alert for potential threats. That's all here in Business Daily from
0:50.9	the BBC.
0:57.6	So it just finished another week.
1:03.7	I tell you it was a very challenging week with a lot of tragedies.
1:08.6	And so it's, I think that's the part that's becoming the most draining.
1:13.3	Laura Hurrelluck, critical care physician at Toronto Western Hospital in Canada,
1:16.0	and leader of their rapid response team.
1:19.4	Our producer Frey Lindsay and I caught up with her on a Zoom call at the end of another long, exhausting week,
1:22.0	almost a year after we last spoke to her.
1:24.9	Nowadays, she bears the physical scars of her work.
1:28.8	If you were on video, I would show you. I don't know if you still have the Zoom,
1:32.3	and if you can see, look at this is what I mean about those snaking wounds.
1:36.8	You can't see it, but Laura's got sort of a bit of scarring on the sides of her cheeks.
1:42.8	That's from the mask. And it goes all the way around my neck in my hairline. So that's why I actually, you know, I wasn't sure if you were going to do video. And I was sort of like, oh my God, you know, do you want me in like a cap and stuff? But then I thought, you know, if you really see the extent of my skin, it could frighten small
2:02.0	children. But this past year has also taken a huge emotional and mental toll.
2:07.5	You know, unfortunately, when you work in the ICU, it's often that, you know, we have to share
2:12.5	very distressing, very sad news with people, but usually we do that with personal contact and not just
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.