"Nurse Patti" Lafontant: Registered Nurse, Washington, DC
POPSUGAR: Can you describe your prepandemic work life and how it changed during the pandemic?
"Nurse Patti" Lafontant: Prepandemic, work was very busy, but despite being in an emergency room there was nothing we saw that we weren't prepared for. Work was business as usual . . . more patients than beds, being short-staffed, and the same hospital politics.
"COVID-19 disproportionately effects African Americans more than any of our counterparts, and COVID-19 shone a bright light on how broken our healthcare system really is."
A lot changed during the pandemic — things changed by the hour. Hospital leaders and administrators were very lost and confused, so naturally, the clinicians and essential workers were, too. A lot of the staff were scared. A lot of nurses have small children at home, were pregnant, or were already elderly and had chronic illnesses themselves. That made things more complicated, because we would witness people suffer and/or die and understood that it could also be us or our families. On top of the anxiety of getting sick, dying, or causing someone else to, we were hearing about the PPE shortage and how nurses in other states were working without any at all. The work environment was very tense and sometimes even hostile. We were all overwhelmed.
PS: Are you familiar with the concept of vicarious trauma as a health worker? And if so, do you believe vicarious trauma or PTSD is a common experience among health works?
PL: Yes, I believe both vicarious trauma and PTSD exist amongst MOST healthcare workers, but I also believe that most of us experienced PTSD long before COVID-19. Those of us who work in hospitals — especially in acute care settings such as the emergency room, trauma centre, and ICU — had many traumatic experiences after taking care of critically sick or severely injured patients and their families.
PS: How does being a health worker impact your mental health in a positive and/or negative way, and has this changed during the pandemic?
PL: My mental health has been impacted in a positive way by my profession because I get to see, on a regular basis, that no matter how bad or difficult you think your situation is, someone else's is even harder. The way my profession has impacted my mental health negatively is that I will never understand why people have to suffer the way that they do, and I have witnessed a lot of human suffering. The pandemic didn't really change anything — it highlighted it.
PS: In my experience, a lot of health workers don't believe they require (or perhaps, deserve) psychological support or assistance for "simply doing their jobs." What is your experience with this, and has your perspective changed since the pandemic began?
PL: Prior to the pandemic, many of us felt like we could handle the demands of our jobs by just having good support from family and friends. I think, after experiencing this pandemic, we now know that professional assistance is probably best.
PS: Were you offered psychological support, and is there any service you wish you had been offered to cope better during the pandemic?
PL: I was not offered quote-on-quote "real" support, but I was offered a 1-800 number assistance from the Employment Assistance Program through my employer. This was the same assistance they provided prior to COVID-19, and it wasn't much. I wish nurses were offered real psychological support early on including taking time off to reset. Having PPE readily available would've also saved a lot of lives and a lot of us from anxiety and depression.
PS: Throughout the pandemic, health workers have been hailed as heroes and were compared to soldiers going to the frontline of a war. How did this make you feel?
PL: I wasn't comfortable being called a hero or being compared to a soldier at war. Being called a hero put false expectations and pressure on us. Nurses are superhuman, but not superheroes — because as much as we wish we did, we do not have superpowers, and we can become a patient at anytime. As far as being compared to soldiers, I would never want to diminish the danger soldiers face fighting for a country on a battlefield, with real weapons. I was a nurse following the earthquake in Haiti, and that felt more like a warzone to me than COVID. COVID was (and is) bad, but I wouldn't compare it to an actual battle field with bullets flying and bombs going off.
PS: Do you think the work you have done during the pandemic will affect you long-term, psychologically, or in a different way than your pre-COVID workload did?
PL: I believe the work that I did during this pandemic will never be forgotten. I'm not sure if I can predict what long-term affects it will have on me.
PS: Is there anything else you would like people to know?
PL: I'd also like to add that COVID-19 disproportionately effects African Americans more than any of our counterparts, and COVID-19 shone a bright light on how broken our healthcare system really is.