To heal from the pandemic, we have to acknowledge the trauma of Covid
New column in Cancer Nursing Today
In the last newsletter I said I would post every two weeks, on Thursdays. It’s only been one week since then and today is Friday, not Thursday, so I guess I won’t always stick to a schedule, but I guarantee good content!
Looking back at Covid
Robert F. Kennedy’s Senate confirmation hearings for Director of the Department of Health and Human Services are ongoing and he refuses to say that vaccines don’t cause autism. I bring this up because if America is hit by another pandemic over the next few years, or even if we want to keep our population as healthy as possible, the Director of HHS needs to promote the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and needs to reject debunked claims that connect vaccines with unproven and deleterious side effects, such as autism. Multiple research studies have shown that vaccines do not cause autism, and yet Kennedy will not disclaim the connection.
I bring up Kennedy’s unscientific criticisms of vaccines because my new column in Cancer Nursing Today takes a look back at Covid, viewed through the lens of pandemic stories I’ve heard while traveling internationally. From what I’ve seen and heard, many people continue to struggle with post-Covid anxiety. I imagine that nurses (and doctors and all health care workers) are similarly struggling, especially in the U.S.
Why in the U.S. specifically? Consider the following two sets of numbers: approximately 7 million people died globally from Covid, and roughly 1.2 million of those people died in the US. That is, Covid deaths in the U.S. accounted for 17% of all deaths from Covid internationally. However, the U.S. only accounts for 4% of the world’s population (350 million people out of 8 trillion). Think about those numbers. Looked at purely in terms of statistical probability, a lot more people died here than should have, especially considering how wealthy our country is and how available modern health care is to the bulk of our citizens.
That high number of deaths means that health care workers experienced an out of proportion level of suffering and research on post-traumatic stress disorder among nurses post-pandemic has found high levels of PTSD. In the column below I encourage nurses and all health care workers to give themselves time to recognize how hard it was to work through Covid, because recognition is essential for healing. That’s also why we need an HHS Secretary who understands actual science and supports vaccines as safe preventative treatments for killer diseases. Enough people have died already and nurses have seen enough trauma.
A New Year's Wish for Nurses
Cancer Nursing Today
This column is not about politics despite the news being focused on President Trump; it focuses on nurses’ well-being, instead. I’ve spent the past few months thinking about how as a country, and maybe even a planet, we never officially mourned the pandemic and all the suffering it caused, especially for health care workers. That suffering has been on my mind because I’ve been lucky enough to travel internationally over the past few years and wherever I go, COVID-19 comes up. It got me thinking about all the working nurses in the U.S. who have probably not had time to grieve their COVID experiences. My New Year’s wish for nurses is that sharing the stories I’ve heard, and talking about the trauma of the pandemic, will help nurses recognize and honor their own pandemic-related suffering.
Research to determine how many nurses had PTSD as a result of the pandemic began during the COVID years and several studies have not surprisingly found higher rates of anxiety and PTSD among nurses than were present in the general population at that time. A globally focused review article by Hernández-Bojorge et al. identified a PTSD rate of 29.1% among nurses in eight different countries, while the rate for the population generally was closer to 15%. Chinese nurses had the lowest rates, at just 4.2%, and nurses in Qatar had the highest, at 74.4%. In the U.S., 53.8% of full-time nurses were found to have high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder following the pandemic.
And now for a bit of solace
As part of my ongoing effort to find moments of joy amid the Trump chaos, I’m recommending a book I just finished reading: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Both of my daughters have been talking about it nonstop and I took it with me on a recent trip to Denver where I was doing research. It’s funny and smart, a little meandering at times and can get lost in world-building, but I really enjoyed it and it left me feeling more hopeful about humanity, even though many of the characters are not human.
As always, let me know what you think. And remember laughter.
Hugs,
Theresa
I would like to share with you that approximately 314,000 NURSES WORLDWIDE DIED CARING FOR COVID-19 PATIENTS. THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF NURSING ( ICN) HAS NOT DONE MUCH ABOUT THIS.
BUT I HAVE. In 2022 I and the American Holistic Nurses Association (AHNA) presented our PLAN TO HONOR NURSES WHO HAVE DIED OF COVID, SUICIDE AND VIOLENCE. I am the President, Terri Roberts, RN MA JB and I am forming a NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION to fulfill our commitment to honor all NURSES WORLDWIDE. VIOLENCE describes the attack and killing of nurses in the ER ICU and mental Health facilities which have risen exponentially in the US and we believe in the world. We know that the suicide rate of nurses is increasing each year due to many factors but ALL RELATED TO OUR HOSPITALS, CLINICS NOT SUPPORTING NURSES with INADEQUATE STAFFING, INFECTION CONTROL AND A LACK OF ANA SPEAKING UP AND TAKING ACTION. I testify on this in DC (NIH, NASEM, ANA, etc.)through my own company (Healing Healthcare Solutions) and (Legal Healthcare Solutions.) I am a Legal Nurse Consultant and Expert Witness.
WE HAVE DESIGNED A BANNER USING THE CHATRES LABYRINTH WHERE WE HAVE A PHOTO, NURSING SPECIALTY, DATE OF DEATH, AND FACILITY THAT THEY worked and this banner can be hung in the hospital chapel, entrance, or in the UNIT WHERE THE RN WORKED. I have contacted ambassadors and foreign dignitaries, LARGE CORPORATE CEOS OF MEDICAL EQUIPMENT to assist in finding our deceased Covid-19 nurses S on this project which will be worldwide. I am also a dual US and Swiss Citizen. I was born an ARMY BRAT to a Colonel and were posted in post-WWII France, Vietnam, and JAPAN. I have worked as an ICU, Trauma, ER, PACU, AND OR nurse and my second love is HOSPICE I worked as an ICU RN for TWO GULF WARS. Terri Roberts's father was an AF Pilot Colonel during Vietnam and she was posted in Okinawa with him.
MY FINAL GOAL IS TO HAVE A WALL IN DC TO HONOR EACH AND EVERY RN WHO DIED OF COVID-!0 THIS FAR EXCEEDS THE VIETNAM MEMORIAL OF 55,000 WHO DIED. WE THEN WILL BRANCH OUT TO HONOR THE PHYSICIANS, EMTs, FIREMEN, AND POLICE WHO DIED OF COVID -19 CARING FOR COVID -19 PATIENTS.
YOU CAN CONTACT ME. marilyngerber@earthink.net (717) 503-5280.
I LIVE OUTSIDE OF Philadelphia. I have worked at UCSF, Kaiser Opern Heart San Francisco, SHOCK TRAUMA BALTIMORE, JOHN HOPKINS, PENN, and many other hospitals in CA, MD, VA, PA, VT as well as internationally. I am the Chair of the Integrative Health Care Practices- Specialty Assembly part of the American Association of periOperative Nurses. I am a published author, and prior to nursing I was a textile and fashion designer worldwide for Fortune 500 Companies and I have my MA/MBA. I have taught at 5 colleges and AM PASSIONATE ABOUT MEDICINE /NURSING as well as teaching HOLISTIC MEDICINE TO ANYONE WHO WILL LISTEN TO ME!
I think about this now more than ever. I had repressed a lot of Covid bedside nursing trauma. I had, in my mind, accepted all the people in my life who did not acknowledge the gravity nor heed the advice of experts in the mist of the pandemic. Now we are watching every extreme movement that disengages the public from health spiral out of control, again, to a more alarming extent. Witnessing the lack of concern, once again, is pouring gas on the fire within my nursing soul.