Up to 600,000 adults working in healthcare may need mental health help

Headline news. Big story. Experts being interviewed. How shocking.

How many school kids will need the same? Why isn't THAT the headline news?

 

good grief ST what’s the matter with you, do you just look for stuff to get upset about!No wonder healthcare workers are stressed!

 

Am I wrong?

 

why not just accept folk in healthcare are stressed , do you expect them to list everybody else

 

It is amazing how many times you answer your own questions without realising...

 

Younger kids just seem to be getting on with it to be honest - seem far more resilient.

 

If I’m being honest working in healthcare I reckon 600k is the tip of the iceberg. Everyone in the team I look after including me definitely had some mental health/wellbeing issues this past year.

Compounded by home issues with wife child etc also being affected by the pandemic in their own ways too.

Millions upon millions across this nation will have been blighted by this past year with many of them likely to go suffering for years to come. That’s the headline really.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55630157

 

My youngest daughter wakes up with bad dreams every single night since a couple of months into this. Also, you’re not telling me that those kids who’s parents put them in masks, keep them off school or are constantly on the look out for the most minor of symptoms aren’t going to suffer long term mental health damage. It’s bound to happen

 

This.

 

Maybe because the health professionals have been dealing with an unprecedented number of corpses and grieving relatives which might be a bit more traumatic than ‘not being able to play with mi mates’.

 

Its not necessarily "bound to happen." Those sort of anxious parents would be like that regardless. Depending on your child's age, bad dreams are very common. Are you sure it's to do with COVID?

 

The way that the mental health of children and struggling parents is just dismissed on here is shocking. "Bad dreams are common" as if that makes it ok, a"anxious parents would be like that regardless" what a sweeping statement and so dismissive.

Then you have Donny red mocking and dismissing it as "not being able to play wi mates".

Download tiktok and search for suicide, depression, mental health and look who are posting the videos saying they don't want to be here anymore, that they've actually tried to kill themselves this year, that they are receiving help from councillors via school or that they cannot access help. It's a hell of a lot of school kids. Same with Instagram, Facebook and the others and that's just those old enough to have their own accounts.

The mental health of children has been massively affected and it will live with them a lifetime. As adults if we hear that thousands a day are dying we have the ability to rationalise that into age groups, vulnerable and even to just say ok a thousand is a lot but out of 70 million it's a low percentage. As a child hearing that it's killing a thousand a day it is absolutely terrifying. Seeing the TV dominated with people saying schools are not safe and then being forced to go into that school is absolutely terrifying. Being told that if you go near your grandparents you may kill them is terrifying. Not being allowed out of your house in case you catch a killer virus is terrifying.

People seem so dismissive that they say 'their only problem is not playing out with mates' as yet it couldn't be further from the truth. That's the least of their troubles.

 

You are aware that it’s possible to be concerned about the mental health of health care workers AND the wellbeing of kids aren’t you?

 

That was my point actually. Why hasn't there been any headline news about the mental health of kids? There have been the odd article but there's been no headline big news story on the 6 o'clock news. To me that shows that as a society at large we aren't concerned about both, kids are forgotten.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not being dismissive at all But suicide among young people had been prevalent before COVID. I totally agree CAMHS etc had been overwhelmed, but unfortunately that is not a new thing.

 

Not wanting to dispute the issue, but the NHS only employs 120000 doctors and 300000 nurses, so not sure where they get the extra 180000 healthcare workers from.

Most people are having some mental health issues at various points during this pandemic. This can range from self-harm - although figures I saw last week showed that hospital admittance for self-harm (which covers suicide attempts) actually fell during the lockdowns below the five year average - through various other issues including "anxiety" based conditions. It is these, such as OCD, germaphobia, agoraphobia and other social anxieties where I suspect we will see more problems within the general public at large. For the healthcare workers, I can't imagine what they are going through, and PTSD will likely be a major issue for the frontline workers. All we can do is our part to limit the spread until we can get everyone vaccinated.

 

Well I’ve not researched the numbers but there’s lots of ‘not nurses’ healthcare assistants working in the NHS, not to mention every care home in the country which employ both nurses and healthcare workers.

Then add in non NHS hospitals and it’s easy to see where your counting of NHS doctors and nurses is missing a lot of people.

 

I feel anxiety but just try and push it to the back of my mind. If I stopped to think about it too much. I'd flick the alarm off and rollover and go back to sleep on a morning.

It's hard hearing a cough or a sneeze on the way to work or at work and thinking is my name on it. I think I'll be happier when I've had my dose of vaccine. At the minute I've come through 10 months and not had it.

I don't want to be that poor soul going over the top after both sides have shook hands.

 

Fair point about the care home staff - they aren't NHS but are healthcare workers. Its early and I'm still eating breakfast.

The majority of the NHS staff aren't direct frontline healthcare, but without them it would fail to work very quickly - by that I mean IT, logistics, porters, maintenance, pathology, pharmacy, etc. These will also be affected to some extent.