Giving care in crisis
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2020
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the coronavirus outbreak worsens in many areas, the mental health of those providing frontline care is under strain. We’ll hear from one care worker in Spain afraid of passing the virus to her family, as well as health care workers around the world who are scared. Laura Hawryluck, associate professor at the Toronto Western Hospital Critical Care Response team in Canada, tells us what the SARS outbreak can teach us about the experience and resilience of care workers and Dr Alys Cole-King, Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board in Wales, UK, explains what advice there is for those who have to get up and go to work every day.
If you are depressed and need to ask for help, there's advice on who to contact at BBC Action Line.
Outside of the UK, visit Befrienders International for more information about support services.
Producers: Vivienne Nunis, Frey Lindsay
(Picture: Health care workers speak with an elderly woman in Ontario, Canada. Picture credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. I'm Manuel Saragossa. Coming up, working on the front line of the coronavirus pandemic. |
| 0:10.9 | It's when you get home that the nightmares wake you up in the middle of the night. |
| 0:15.9 | We're talking about the psychological burden of health workers and care workers. I was on the front lines in SARS and we saw that too |
| 0:23.0 | was this anxiety of bringing the illness home. |
| 0:25.8 | And I think for some people, that may be overwhelming. |
| 0:28.9 | And advice on how to cope. |
| 0:30.8 | This is a marathon. It's not a sprint. |
| 0:34.0 | Focus on one clinical task on the one patient you're helping right now. |
| 0:39.7 | That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:45.3 | If this COVID-19 pandemic is a war, then its foot soldiers are the world's armies of medics, nurses and carers. |
| 0:53.9 | But do they have the right equipment to go into battle? Across the world's armies of medics, nurses and carers. But do they have the right equipment to go into |
| 0:56.3 | battle? Across the world, the coronavirus pandemic has triggered a run on global supplies of |
| 1:02.2 | personal protective equipment, PPE, according to the World Health Organization. That's added |
| 1:08.5 | another level of extreme anxiety to an already very stressful situation. |
| 1:13.7 | We spoke to a worker at a care home for the elderly in Spain. The death toll there from the |
| 1:18.7 | coronavirus is now the second highest in the world after Italy. Earlier this week in Spain, elderly |
| 1:24.3 | patients in several retirement homes were left abandoned and in some cases dead |
| 1:29.2 | in their beds. The Spanish nurse we spoke to works in a different care home. She asked to remain |
| 1:35.4 | anonymous. I'm worried because I think they haven't taken enough measures. |
| 1:45.8 | Many of our colleagues are on sick leave, staff aren't given protective equipment, |
| 1:52.0 | so we are exposed. |
| 1:53.9 | We are just given an ordinary mask that is useless against the virus because it's an |
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