“After the pandemic we have not returned to normal, we have returned to irregularity but now with more population and professional burn-out is very intense.” “In the absence of professionals, the solution given is to increase the number of patients in an unlimited manner.” “The way we are working, we are going against the ethical principles of the profession” “We nurses are burned out.” “The self-prescription of anxiolytics has grown disproportionately.” “More and more colleagues are breaking up and abandoning the profession to which they have dedicated so much effort since they were teenagers.”
The Opinió Quiral colloquium on the mental health of health professionals organized by the Fundació Vila Casas yesterday became a cry about the discomfort of this large group.
“Health professionals were already starting from a state of discomfort due to the cuts to the welfare state when the covid arrived and now, in the post-covid scenario, what is breathed is nihilism, disconnection and inaction; The professionals are burned out and the general feeling is that they no longer identify with the work,” summarized María Dolores Braquehais, psychiatrist and clinical head of the comprehensive care program for sick health professionals at the Galatea Clinic.
Since the beginning of 2020, the Galatea Foundation has served nearly 5,300 health professionals in Catalonia: 1,299 in 2020; 1,376 in 2021; 1,846 in 2022, and 734 between January and April of this year.
María Romeu, a public health nurse specializing in mental health, provided some figures that clearly illustrate the feelings of the nursing community based on studies from the Galatea Clinic. If in 2017 the percentage of nurses who considered their health to be fair or poor did not reach 15%, in 2022 (in which she collected data from October 2021) it exceeded 33%.
And the percentage of those who saw their mental health at risk has quintupled in that period, reaching 58% in 2022. The number of professionals who declare themselves tired, stressed or in pain has also tripled, and the percentage of those who declare that they can't take it anymore has gone from 14.6% to 39.8%.
“Nurses are more affected than other professionals because we are frequently in contact with pain, suffering and death, and we are mostly women, with the consequent problems of conciliation; Added to this are precarious working conditions and low professional satisfaction due to little social recognition and also within the sector,” emphasized Romeu, who is vice president of the Col·legi Official d’Infermeres i Infermers de Barcelona (COIB).
With this panorama, he said, 37% have considered leaving the profession. And, that, according to the data that Romeu provided and the analysis of the situation made by the president of Metges de Catalunya, Jordi Cruz, is dramatic because there is a lack of health professionals and, with those who are reaching retirement, there will be many more missing in the next years.
“The system is basically bankrupt due to the laziness of those who had to plan because the demographic pyramids already indicated the scenario that we are having,” intervened Xavier Lleonart, secretary of Metges de Catalunya, who also questioned that the health system is managed with criteria only. economists rather than as a public service.
In this sense, both Dr. Braquehais and Dolors Liria, psychologist at the Galatea Foundation and vice dean of the Official College of Psychology of Catalonia (COPC), pointed out that this management, how work is organized, the available resources and working conditions It has a lot to do with the increase in mental health disorders, disconnection and lack of identification with the work of health professionals.
Liria greatly emphasized that it is crucial for the health of this group to work as a team “and that is the responsibility of the organizations.”
Doctors Montserrat Viladomiu and Miquel Vilardell, trustees of the Vila Casas Foundation, agreed that one of the issues that hinder the motivation and health of healthcare workers is poor personnel policies. “The orders are imposed from above, from one day to the next they change your agency, no one asks you what you want to do…” lamented the first. “They did not teach us to work as a team nor do they make it easier, but COVID showed us that this was and is the only solution to get ahead,” said Vilardell.
“The discomfort of health professionals is not going to be resolved with more psychiatric or psychological resources, but with institutional and organizational changes, because a very important component of said discomfort has to do with how the health system is organized and how it is It prepares them to practice, beyond the care overload,” said Braquehais.
In this sense, there were several professionals who took advantage of the colloquium to demand a restructuring of the health system but also of the system of access to health-related professions.
“Medical students are already the adolescents who are most stressed and demanding of themselves,” said Dr. Gemma Revuelta. “In the training of doctors, memory skills and competitiveness are prioritized and we do not value attitudes nor do we learn to manage people or solve problems,” said Núria Terribas.
Braquehais stressed the need to promote both among students and among professionals who already practice the culture of care instead of that of performance because “caring is not only ethically desirable, but it is also profitable from the logic of efficiency, which is the one that managers understand.”
