Violence against healthcare workers affects your health!

As I write this, my heart is heavy with grief and smoldering with anger. Just today there was news of nurses getting mobbed and attacked by the relatives of a patient. It is deeply saddening to see incidents like these come up almost every week and makes one really wonder how many of such incidents actually occur weekly. These incidents make big noise and are all over the media for some days only to abate rather quickly without making actual changes to the laws or policies. Different groups of people react differently, some strongly condemn it with hashtags of ‘jailwithoutbail’, the others remark that we should at least not have to hear such news amidst the pandemic and then there are people who find a way to blame the healthcare workers by bringing it down to negligence or lack of communication. There are definitely many factors that fuel the epidemic of violence against healthcare workers, ranging from sheer hooliganism to lack of proper communication. These incidents could easily contribute to burnout which ultimately affects the quality of care that patients receive.

Healthcare workers burnout is a complex problem that is often not discussed in our society. It is a work related syndrome characterized by extreme emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a loss of sense of personal accomplishments. In simple words what it means is that they are in a state where they feel they are not in control of their lives, see patients as objects and deem themselves unable to help patients successfully. The factors leading to this state are many. The medical field is a highly demanding one where aspirants learn to prioritize their work before anything else early on. The robust training, followed by long work hours, paperwork and to top all that the struggle to maintain a balanced personal and professional life definitely serves as an alloy leading to burnout. Just the other day I saw a tweet by a doctor who shared a rather woebegone incident of the day his father-in-law committed suicide. He was in the clinic when he received a call from his wife informing him of the sad news and he responded by telling her how he was very busy at the moment and would get back to her later. Needless to say, this triggered a much needed discussion on the sheer impact work and responsibilities have on a physician’s life.