Joyce Fegan: Clapping an empty gesture when burnt-out health workers are being assaulted

Workers have had no time to decompress from the pressure cooker of working right through a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic

Rounds of applause are no substitute for safeguards, nor for better working conditions and pay, for frontline workers, who were dailyexposed to death during the pandemic and who continue to be regularly assaulted.

EATEN bread is soon forgotten. In Britain, they clapped for carers during the Covid-19 pandemic; they clapped for 10 weeks during the first lockdown. In Ireland, we talked ad nauseam about our ‘frontline heroes’. Some shops gave them discounts. There was endless State talk about that one-off bonus of a few bob.

This week, it was revealed that there were 263 assaults on healthcare workers in June: 160 HSE nurses were assaulted, and other workers assaulted included occupational, physical, and speech-and-language therapists and sonographers. There were two assaults against doctors and one assault on a dentist.

The news follows thousands of junior doctors, working for the HSE, voting “overwhelmingly” in favour of industrial action to protest long working hours and unsafe conditions.

In June, as five nurses a day were assaulted, 97% of the 7,500 doctors balloted voted in favour of a possible strike.

And this time last year, an Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) survey showed that 90% of their members were facing “mental exhaustion” and 68% considered leaving the profession as a consequence of Covid-19.

These people combined — our junior doctors and our nurses and midwives — are the backbone of our health service, meaning they are the backbone of our society and our working economy.

All these figures and surveys and statistics aside, our eaten bread is long forgotten as we holiday and make the most of the sunshine, but these nurses and doctors are still at the coalface of Covid-19 every day. 

These people, working long hours and night shifts, haven’t had as much as a second to decompress from the pressure cooker of working right through a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.

As some anti-vax and anti-lockdown campaigners complained about infringements upon their bodily liberties, these people put their bodies on the line and double-masked and wore hazmat suits to treat and care for other human beings.

Many nurses, wearing surgical gloves, acted as stand-in family members and chaplains by holding the hands of the dying while playing the person’s favourite song on their phone. Or, they used their own phones to video call their patient’s loved ones to facilitate some kind of dignified human passing.

One ICU nurse working in an Irish hospital summed it up:

The sound of zipping up double body bags, knowing you are the last person to see that person, is harrowing.

And then these people would go home at night, or early in the morning. Many had homeschooling to do, too.

Healthcare workers sign up for a lifetime of this kind of work, but no one ever signed up for a pandemic, assault, or burnout.

In last July’s INMO survey, nurses said they had experienced more death than they had ever expected.

“62% of the members who responded to the survey indicated that they had cared for patients that died as a result of Covid-19, and while nurses and midwives deal with and care for dying patients normally, the level of death in this short period far exceeded previous levels in circumstances that were far from ideal in many instances,” said the INMO’s Steve Pitman.

The doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers will be the ones who bear the brunt of the grim winter ahead.

Our government has known about this information for a year and they know the result of June’s junior doctors’ ballot vote.

And we are being told to buckle up or batten down the hatches for autumn and winter, when an intense flu season will collide with Covid-19.

Once again, it’ll be these nurses and doctors who will bear the brunt of that collision of consequences. And when their children’s class or creche closes with an outbreak, they’ll be forced to call in sick, further affecting our health system and the people who make it work.

Come next November, it’s unlikely these people will appreciate platitudes of ‘hero’ or rounds of applause. In fact, in Britain nurses said they don’t want rounds of applause.

“As an NHS nurse, I do not want to be clapped for. All I want is for people to stick to the guidelines and for the government to raise the wages for nurses,” said Cate Mimi.

This week, when the assault figures were released, similar words were echoed here.

Phil Ní Sheaghdha, general secretary of the INMO, said that “nurses are facing the brunt of physical and verbal aggression in hospitals.

In some cases, our members are victims of career-ending assaults.

She said “soothing words” would not equate to the support and repair needed.

Again, this week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that European countries urgently need to reintroduce restrictions and increase vaccination rates, as it warns of a challenging winter ahead. Nurses and doctors and GPs are listening to this, knowing well what’s ahead, while simultaneously assessing the current capacity of their own tank after two and a half years of intense work.

WHO director for Europe, Hans Kluge, said countries should act now to avoid overwhelming healthcare systems in autumn and winter.

His warning comes at the same time that nearly three million new Covid-19 cases were reported in Europe — that accounts for nearly half of all new cases globally.

Winter worries

Our Department of Health is already working on plans for a potentially severe early influenza season, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said.

Australia's winter-flu season has been severe, and it started earlier. From mid-April, weekly confirmed caseloads were above the five-year average. It matters, because what happens in the southern hemisphere usually makes its way here for our winter.

While big workplaces worry about getting staff back into their buildings and carving out some kind of post-Covid-19 hybrid working model, they might be singing a different tune come autumn, when they’re glad their workplace can actually function with remote working.

In Australia, the surge in cold and flu cases drove a 50% increase in workplace sick leave across the entire country.

Bringing everything to mind, from what healthcare workers have told us, voted on, been surveyed about, and reported, and knowing current case numbers and what’s happening in Australia, neither claps nor compliments are likely to cut the mustard with our nurses and doctors come autumn.

Things like increased recruitment, adequate remuneration, and the normal working hours that most of us enjoy might cut the mustard, though. So, too, might not being verbally or physically assaulted. And so, too, might wearing a mask in the appropriate settings.

These people are the backbone of our country’s wellbeing. Let’s treat them as such.