Summary And Analysis Of The Article
The exploitation of workers, be it in healthcare or any other sector, is observed since time immemorial. Both Mental And Physical Exploitation is a contributing factor to the agony and misery of the workers. This essay is based on an article that points out the issues that the healthcare workers of Ontario had to deal with during the peak hours of the covid-19 crisis. It stresses the defects and shortfalls of the healthcare systems and organizations and also the negligence of the provincial government regarding the health and safety of workers. This essay also provides some recommendations that can reduce the gap between workers and the higher management authorities. The recommendations provided aim at building a safe workplace for the healthcare staff in the future.
Covid-19 pandemic posed a major challenge to the healthcare sector in almost every country across the world, in recent times. It exposed the culpability in the organizational setup and legislative framework of the system. This article explained the issues faced by healthcare staff in Ontario, a province of Canada, due to such faulty systems. The interviews of the healthcare staff revealed their agony, mental stress, anxiety, and depression. Stress and workload at the workplace are common for most of them, even in normal situations, as nursing is considered a stressful job, but the fear of getting infected by a life-threatening virus increased their trauma even more. Another aspect that raised trepidation among them was the fact that they could be potential threats to their family members as they were at a high risk of getting infected. Covid-19, being a contagious life-threatening disease, posed the biggest threat to the people of this century. In such a crucial situation, it becomes the responsibility of the management and also the government to take care of the safety of healthcare staff, who stand in the frontline without caring for their safety, in order to save people’s lives.
The article also points out the problems of the healthcare workers of Ontario when the world was going through this critical phase. As the pandemic hit hard, they lost their sense of safety and wellbeing, which affected their mental health and undermined their efficacy at work. An increase in the cases of depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance misuse, anxiety disorders, and suicide were observed among the healthcare professionals. A sense of protection and safety is required for every human being to overcome workload, stress, exhaustion, and burnout. But according to the study conducted, the healthcare workers admitted that fact that they could not trust the management of their organization or the government with their safety and wellbeing. 87% of them reported that they were not provided with enough PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) kits to ensure safety, while 91% of them reported that they were not mentally satisfied as they felt that they were abandoned by the government. The efficiency of the healthcare system of Ontario plummeted drastically because of several reasons that existed even before the pandemic hit the world. As per a report published by Ontario Health Coalition, Ontario has the lowest number of beds available for patients in hospitals and it ranked third from the bottom among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Understaffing in most of the organizations led to the lowering of their capacity. Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer reported negligence of the provincial government to invest in the development and maintenance of healthcare services, which was also a contributing factor to the decrease in efficacy of the healthcare sector in response to the covid-19 pandemic. While the global rate of infection of healthcare workers was 14%, Ontario’s rate of infection was 20% indicating a significantly large number of infected staff.
My Stand On The Article
According to the author of this article, the role played by global organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) in providing safety to healthcare professionals was also important. But they also seemed to care less with respect to this matter. WHO and CDC (U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) suggested the mandatory use of surgical masks only instead of N95s or air-purifying respirators, whereas it was noted in several studies that the use of PPE and such respirators led to a significant reduction of infection in China. The government of Ontario was also at fault, in this respect, as it also failed to get an adequate supply of N95s for the healthcare staff.
The results of such negligence from all sides led to dissatisfaction, psychological distress, and exhaustion among healthcare workers, as reported by the author of this study. This results in a loss of efficacy of the organization.
In my opinion, the satisfaction of the healthcare workers is an absolute necessity as they are the front liners who have to deal with the patients directly and support them both physically and mentally. According to CDC, depression, and stress are detrimental to their health. The covid-19 pandemic contributed more to their misery through stress, strain, fatigue, grief, loss, and pain. It also burdened workers with excessive workload, financial stress due to changes in economic conditions, and unpredictable work life. The pandemic has exposed them more to human deaths and severe human suffering. But still, they took the risk of saving people’s lives even if it meant sacrificing their own. Exposure to infectious and contagious diseases like covid-19 increases their fear and anxiety about their safety. So, the hospital management and both the national and international healthcare regulatory agencies must show their concern for protecting their lives. If they do not have the feeling of safety in the environment of their workplace, then, it becomes very difficult for them to carry on with work. This was another cause of understaffing in the Ontario hospitals as lack of safety measures proved to be a blow to their retention. The feeling of exploitation, negligence, and disrespect by both the hospital management and the provincial government due to the above-mentioned reasons broke their mental stability. In this report, the author emphasized the interview conducted on the healthcare staff. Most of them expressed their agony and misery. Coming into contact with a life-threatening virus every day is not easy. It requires moral strength and support from their families, colleague, and hospital management. So, their basic right to healthcare and safety must be ensured by the authorities. Apart from all these, the exploitation they faced, both mentally and physically, was immense. According to Stephens (2019) and Larkin (2021), violence at the workplace has been noticed in many circumstances in the wake of covid-19 pandemic. Hence, my standpoint is clear and it is with the healthcare workers who worked day and night, risking their lives every day, to take care of people’s needs. I think it is justified if they raise their voice against injustice done against them by the higher authorities of the healthcare settings and the provincial government of Ontario.
Recommendations
The threat posed by the covid-19 pandemic exposed the flaws in the system and procedures of healthcare organizations. To provide a better work environment and to provide safety and wellbeing to the healthcare professionals, some organizational changes are required to be done. The problems of the healthcare workers that were revealed were psychological distress as well as organizational stress. To deal with the problems and mitigate them, the provincial government of Ontario and the authorities of the healthcare organizations must step forward to enhance the sense of security and responsibility among the workers. the government should take up the responsibility of supplying all the required medical equipment like PPE (Personal Protection Equipment), surgical masks, sanitizers, face shields, and hand gloves in adequate amounts so that the healthcare staff does not feel insecure about their safety and protection (Iacobucci, 2020). Vaccination should be provided to healthcare professionals, to ensure their safety and wellbeing (Maltezou et al, 2019), (Khunti et al, 2021). More healthcare staff should be recruited as soon as possible to meet the needs and to improve the condition of understaffing (Andel et al, 2022), as understaffing increases workload in any workplace setting (Scales, 2020). Additional workload leads to increased stress and depression. Although, both the government and healthcare organizations are facing financial stress, they still should invest a significant amount in the healthcare sector to revive it and seal the gaps (Barnett, Mehrotra & Landon, 2020). As everything is measured and justified against laws and policies, each organization should encode rules and regulations for the safety of both healthcare professionals and patients. Much of the rules and procedures were found to be neglected in the emergency pandemic situation. The strictness of rules and policies should be implemented to alleviate their risk of infection. Proper protocols and procedures should be followed like wearing PPE and surgical masks while working with any patient, sanitization of the workplace, and so on. The government should strive to remove the general stigma that arose regarding the healthcare workers that they are dangerous to society when they step out of their work area. The government should bring strict laws to provide safety and justice to them. All these measures can help in the retention of workers in hospitals and prevent understaffing. The management of healthcare organizations must look into the policies implemented at the workplace and take corrective actions to amend them. Most of the policies are inconsistent with the requirements of the circumstances. Joint health and safety committees must schedule meetings to discuss policies of improvement in the healthcare sector. New technologies can be adopted and implemented to improve the quality of work (Yousif, Hewage & Nawaf, 2021). Future technologies like artificial intelligence have the capacity to lessen the workload and burden of clinical staff (Bhambere, Abhishek & Sumit, 2021), (Singh et al, 2020). Different campaigns can be launched to listen to dissatisfaction and address the issues of workers. These can raise their hope and reliability to management and government regarding their safety. As most healthcare workers live with mental stress and burnout syndrome, regular therapies and counseling sessions by professionals must be organized by the authority, to relieve them from such stress. These recommendations may help mitigate most of the problems of the healthcare sector of Ontario.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the health and safety of healthcare professionals are still at the bottom of the list. It is regarded as the last priority by the healthcare organizations as well as by the provincial government of Ontario. Although they worked hard to discharge their duties and took up much more responsibilities at the time of covid-19 crisis, they were still harassed and exploited by everyone including the patients and their families. The only solutions that can mitigate their misery are steps and measures taken by their protectors, that is, the government and the higher authorities of the healthcare organizations.
References
Andel, S. A., Tedone, A. M., Shen, W., & Arvan, M. L. (2022). Safety implications of different forms of understaffing among nurses during the COVID?19 pandemic. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 78(1), 121-130. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.14952
Barnett, M. L., Mehrotra, A., & Landon, B. E. (2020). Covid-19 and the upcoming financial crisis in health care. NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery, 1(2). https://catalyst.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/CAT.20.0153
Bhambere, S., Abhishek, B., & Sumit, H. (2021). Rapid digitization of healthcare—A review of COVID-19 impact on our health systems. Int. J. All Res. Educ. Sci. Methods, 9, 1457-1459. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sailee-Bhambere/publication/349581091_Rapid_Digitization_of_Healthcare_-_A_Review_of_COVID-19_Impact_on_our_Health_systems/links/6036ff9792851c4ed5953a13/Rapid-Digitization-of-Healthcare-A-Review-of-COVID-19-Impact-on-our-Health-systems.pdf
cdc.gov. Healthcare Workers: Work Stress & Mental Health. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/healthcare/workstress.html.
Iacobucci, G. (2020). Covid-19: Doctors still at “considerable risk” from lack of PPE, BMA warns. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1316
Khunti, K., Kamal, A., Pareek, M., & Griffiths, A. (2021). Should vaccination for healthcare workers be mandatory?. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 114(5), 235-236. https://doi.org/10.1080/14760584.2019.1552141
Larkin, H. (2021). Navigating attacks against health care workers in the COVID-19 era. JAMA, 325(18), 1822-1824. doi: 10.1001/jama.2021.2701
Maltezou, H. C., Theodoridou, K., Ledda, C., Rapisarda, V., & Theodoridou, M. (2019). Vaccination of healthcare workers: is mandatory vaccination needed?. Expert review of vaccines, 18(1), 5-13. 10.1177/01410768211013525
Scales, D. (2020). An understaffed hospital battles COVID-19. Health Affairs, 39(8), 1450-1452. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00810
Singh, R. P., Javaid, M., Haleem, A., Vaishya, R., & Bahl, S. (2020). Significance of Health Information Technology (HIT) in context to COVID-19 pandemic: Potential roles and challenges. Journal of Industrial Integration and Management, 5(04), 427-440. https://doi.org/10.1142/S2424862220500232
Stephens, W. (2019). Violence against healthcare workers: a rising epidemic. The American Journal of Managed Care. https://www.ajmc.com/view/violence-against-healthcare-workers-a-rising-epidemic
Yousif, M., Hewage, C., & Nawaf, L. (2021). IoT technologies during and beyond COVID-19: a comprehensive review. Future Internet, 13(5), 105. 10.3390/fi13050105
Article Reviewed Here
Brophy, J. T., Keith, M. M., Hurley, M., & McArthur, J. E. (2021). Sacrificed: Ontario healthcare workers in the time of COVID-19. New Solutions>: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy, 30(4), 267-281. https://doi.org/10.1177/1048291120974358
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