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In fact, an astonishing statistic that came out of the overall study was 63% of people were worried they would be blamed by their colleagues if they got COVID. Admittedly we’re human and can make mistakes, but don’t cast blame when we get sick.” One healthcare student said: “I felt very unsupported by … when I was unwell with COVID-19 and made to feel it was my fault, or that it was the result of community transmission, when it definitely was not.”Īnother healthcare worker said: “Remove the blame from healthcare workers. What also comes out in the book is that some people felt that they were actually blamed when they caught COVID in the workplace. Healthcare workers who got infections in the workplace were extremely upset. That's right, and so there was an extraordinarily high level of concern about that. We can only imagine what it must have been like in the hospitals and aged care places before there were even vaccines – people getting sick and dying with no end in sight. So, yes, absolutely the unexpectedness, and therefore the consequences that has on an unprepared workforce are really what come out in the emotions and descriptions that are revealed. That person highlighted that when an actual pandemic hit, they realised that one bottle of hand sanitiser, one pair of gloves, and 10 surgical masks was laughably inadequate. One of the quotes in the book, from a nurse in primary care, describes their usual accreditation cycles and needing to have a pandemic preparedness resources box. To some extent, I think that's why the entire health workforce was so unprepared.

Yes, about eight years ago, I was giving a talk about influenza and I was saying then, “We're overdue for a pandemic, we haven't had a significant pandemic for a long time, so we really are expecting something catastrophic.”Įven though we had SARS and MERS, which are both coronavirus-related infections, I think what people didn't expect was a completely novel virus where we would start from absolute scratch to deal with it. No institution was properly prepared for the magnitude of it.

Sadly, much of what was said to us in that final question was negative, and people really wanted their voice heard on their opinions about that. We asked 30-odd questions in the survey around mental health experiences and occupational disruption, but they still had so much more to say they really needed to get their personal experiences across. I think there was an awful lot more to say. It’s usually the question at the end of a survey that people ignore. It actually can be quite therapeutic for the individual to release some of their feelings and emotions, and feel that actually somebody is listening to them. That final question really got people talking.Ībsolutely. Lens spoke to Associate Professor Smallwood about the outcome. This is what makes up the book, a gruelling but important testimony. Thousands of healthcare workers said “Yes” to this question, and proceeded to outline in detail their pandemic challenges. But a book has eventuated because of the seemingly innocent final question of their online survey: “Is there anything else you want to tell us?” Read more: At-home COVID care: My positive experience in the healthcare sectorĪ book was never the intention of the original academic survey, led by Associate Professor Smallwood and Professor Karen Willis (Victoria University). Participants ranged from aged care nurses to hospital cleaners and intensive care specialists. The initial survey of almost 10,000 frontline workers was conducted between August and October 2020, during the second wave of the pandemic in Australia. Now, based on the world’s largest multi-professional study of its kind, leading Monash University researcher Associate Professor Natasha Smallwood has co-authored a book, Experiences of Health Workers in the COVID-19 Pandemic, telling healthcare workers’ stories in their own words.

Shortages of personal protective equipment. Seeing families in hospitals similarly unable to get close to their loved ones. The continual rollercoaster of emotions, self-care struggles, and the doomed juggle between work and home.Īdd to that the high risk of infection – remember that the virus was spreading for a significant time with no vaccines available. The high rates of burnout, depression, and even thoughts of suicide and self-harm. One of the significant anecdotal narratives out of Australia’s COVID-19 nightmare has been the enormous psychological and physical toll on frontline healthcare workers.