The Coronavirus Brings A Loss Of Innocence To Healthcare And The Workplace
But a loss of innocence can be a good thing
Since high school, my niece knew she wanted to be in a helping profession. She has a kind soul, loves people, and is drawn toward science, and health sciences in particular.
She thought about becoming a pharmacist for a while, but after shadowing a few and asking them, “If you knew before you decided to become a pharmacist what you know now, would you still choose it as a profession?” Almost all of them said no. After that, and seeing them deal with a few addicts, she decided that it probably was not the profession for her.
She explored a few other options before she decided that occupational therapy was what she wanted to do. More specifically, she wanted to work with the elderly. When many would run away from that challenge, she embraced it. She graduated with her Master’s last year.
It’s been a good fit for her. She loves it, and we have laughed as she has learned to get beyond the embarrassment of things like teaching a gentleman to shower. She has a great sense of humor, a measure of practicality, and the knowledge that she is helping improve the quality of life for her patients. She still loves the elderly and enjoys her time with them.
Out of the blue, the coronavirus came upon the scene. My niece had just changed jobs and been working at a different nursing home for a short time when reports started to appear in the news.
Moving to this new facility has been a challenge for her. She had previously been in an almost ideal situation. She loved the job and felt supported by everyone around her, staff and patients. The problem was they did not have a full-time position available, and she wanted to start paying back her student loans, so she found a full-time job. The new facility did not have the same kind of easy camaraderie as the old one, especially with the staff.
There was one man that she loved working with there, though, a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA). He would always greet her with a smile and offered to help whenever he could. He worked at a couple of different nursing homes owned by their company, so they didn’t work together every day.
Lately, when he was in her facility, he often was the one taking temperatures when my niece arrived. She said he’d always greet her with a friendly “Good morning sunshine!” He’d make her feel welcome, and she said she always started her workday with a smile after an encounter with him.
The last time she saw him, he told her that the other facility he worked in had several patients and staff with COVID-19. Shortly after that, he became one of them. At the end of last week, she found out he had died.
It hit my niece hard. You expect to lose patients when you work in a nursing home occasionally; you don’t expect to lose your co-workers. You especially don’t expect to lose them to a virus that they probably caught while working. At least, not until recently.
My heart breaks for her. The threat of an unknown virus was not something for which she could have ever prepared. It adds new dimensions to her job.
It’s like a soldier first understanding the reality of the battlefield, but at least a soldier has an idea that they can be putting their life on the line when they enlist. How many people in health care had considered it?
I have known hundreds of healthcare workers in my time. I have no friends or friends-of-friends who have died because of something they caught from their patients or co-workers. I suspect in a few months, many of us will not be able to say the same about COVID-19.
It’s easy to get angry at the cavalier attitude of many others. On my good days, I realize it is not necessarily ignorance or a disregard for others, but often it is innocence. This is all new to us. Most of us have never lived in a time where so many lives became disrupted so completely.
Usually, in the movies in everyone’s mind, everything ends up OK. They all live happily ever after. Well, except for the victims, but by the end of watching a movie we tend to forget the victims and think only about the victorious survivors.
What will happen with the healthcare professions in the coming years? Currently, some find themselves at constant risk of catching this virus, while others are unemployed or underemployed because of the reduction in elective procedures. Our systems have never faced this kind of shift in such a short period.
I suspect we may see a change in the type of employees that are drawn into the healthcare fields, too. Some will veer away from healthcare, not wanting to put themselves or their families in harm’s way. Others will move towards it, ready to fight the battles that may lie ahead.
My particular hope is we will see a surge in medical research and product development. When discussions of a shortage of ventilators hit the streets, people from all types of backgrounds tried to come up with ideas of cheaper and more effective products. Face masks are undergoing an evolution. Just watching the designs of my friends who are making them, I am amazed at the thought and ingenuity they are using.
And then there is the international quest to find the best treatment and a vaccine for this virus. New relationships are forming, new alliances begun.
Workplaces of other kinds will also undergo some change. How many have either gone into work sick and not given too much thought about passing it on to others? How many have listened to a co-worker’s hacking cough and known we would possibly be exposed to something but were too polite to say something to them? I expect there will be firmer rules for workplace wellness and more confrontation.
We also have rarely considered the safety of our healthcare workers. If we have a transmittable disease, such as a possible stomach virus, will our behavior change if we go to the doctor’s office? Will we wear masks? Will telemedicine begin to be our first point of contact for assistance?
Probably we should have known better about many of these things, but they never seemed to be significant threats, and people are resistant to change.
Public discourse is now the tightrope of keeping people well versus the need to minimize economic damage to individuals and businesses. I suspect they will be subjects that will be at the forefront of our conversations for a while. There are no easy answers.
The people of the world were innocent of many of these issues in the past. Even today, people are equating the coronavirus to the common flu, despite such evidence to the contrary.
People grab on to phrases like “for most people, this will not be a life-threatening illness,” and then look at the unemployment rate and their bank accounts. In the United States, in particular, where nearly 50% of Americans were living paycheck-to-paycheck even before they were aware of the pandemic and facing unemployment, you can understand some of the intense feelings you see. People are afraid of going deeper into a financial pit from which it will be difficult to recover, and they’ll take their chances with the virus.
There’s sadness almost every way you look at it. But there is also hope.
A loss of innocence is not a bad thing. We are learning and hopefully, ready to pivot as we continue to face the road ahead. We know better. Maybe we will act better?