After two years of the pandemic, health teams are exhausted.
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“Our disability rate is high. We are at 17-18%. On top of that, there is easily a good third that represents professional exhaustion, diseases that are similar to burnout, such as depression or adjustment disorder. It is slightly increasing, but it was still very present before the pandemic, ”explains Denis Cloutier, president of the Syndicate of care professionals of the East-of-the-Island.
Hospitals remain busy despite declining COVID cases. Medical staff have no respite as patients are sicker due to load shedding.
“We see it in the teams, the colleagues know it, the superiors know it. But unfortunately, the pressure of the system to treat patients is so great that we pay little attention to these signs,” says Mr. Cloutier.
Marie-Josée Vallée, a medical technologist, left the healthcare field in 2016 due to overwork. She returned to work in 2020 and finds that the problems persist.
“It is sure that with the COVID, it has really increased exponentially. We live with Public Health, disciplinary measures and all that. This is pure and hard inconsistency. The inconsistency in which we are swimming, it also becomes difficult because it upsets us in our values. So we lose meaning in our work. And that’s where you get burned out, ”she explains.
Reflections are underway to help health workers, but everything will have to go through a change of culture, believe actors in the field.
“Everyone will really have to accept that we have limitations, that we are all human, that we are obliged to take the time to take care of ourselves”, believes Claire Gamache, president of the Association. Quebec psychiatrists.
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Reference-www.journaldequebec.com