Regina Temple: What Healthcare Workers Deal With
Healthcare workers face trauma, stress, and death in various situations on a regular basis. Unfortunately, this is especially true for those working in long-term care facilities and assisted living homes. The responsibility of caring for residents and their loved ones can become overwhelming if the working conditions are not optimal.
Regina Temple cites patient frustrations and discrimination as leading issues healthcare workers have to deal with outside of other, more prevalent matters, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Workers in the healthcare industry often face physical and verbal attacks from patients and their families, including threats, obscenities, and even violence. Sadly, this is not a new phenomenon. Recent studies have shown that between 8 and 38% of healthcare employees worldwide have experienced some form of violence. These incidents only add to the stress in the healthcare environment.
According to Regina Temple, this adds to the burnout experienced by healthcare workers.
Burnout is often caused by the constant feeling of being overwhelmed. It has become a significant issue impacting a vast number of workers and has been a leading factor in their decision to leave their jobs, particularly in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis.
Workers who feel emotionally drained and unable to keep up with the demands of their jobs as well as personal lives normally experience burnout. That said, burnout has many other causes and symptoms. It can be present in any job and industry, but it is particularly high in healthcare.
The nature of caregiving jobs and tasks can take a heavy toll on staff members emotionally and mentally. Along with burnout, healthcare professionals may feel heavy stress and trauma since, as mentioned earlier, they deal with sickness and death regularly. Healthcare workers want to help patients and residents — however, it can become frustrating if they feel powerless due to their stress.
Many healthcare workers dealing with burnout are also more susceptible and vulnerable to other mental health problems. When facing a lot of various stressors, healthcare workers may also become emotionally detached or irritable with patients and colleagues because of burnout.
On a final note, Regina Temple says that healthcare workers depend a lot on leadership and management to keep working conditions on the positive side and create a better work culture that can help stave off burnout. Having effective leadership and support from leaders and supervisors as well as other administrative staff is key to addressing and solving employee concerns as well as preventing issues like job dissatisfaction.
Regina Temple has served in the healthcare community for over 30 years with experiences ranging from for-profit to not-for-profit organizations, unionized to non-unionized facilities and acute care settings to outpatient centers. Read similar articles on healthcare and leadership from Regina Temple by clicking here.