FIGHT COVID19: Protect Health Care Professionals

COVID-19: Nursing is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. - International Council of Nurses

Enforced to the Front Line

The coronavirus pandemic is presently the most pervasive and difficult challenge faced by health care professionals and workers around the world. As the backbone of any nation’s healthcare system, health care professionals (HCPs) have the personal responsibility to be free of sickness in order to think and care for their patients; but when an antidote in the form of a vaccine is yet to be formulated and distributed, HCPs have a hundred percent risk of contracting the disease while treating the infected.

The disease started to spread with sick humans and escalated faster than the dissemination of crucial and timely information, legal policies and guidelines on how to prevent and control the disease, speedy mass testing and distribution of Personal Protection Equipment (PPEs) for the protection of all. When we, as front liners in this health crisis, fail to protect ourselves from exposure to contamination and infection, we hopelessly transfer the responsibility to solve the problem to the doctors, nurses and the health care workers - they urgently and necessarily become the front liners. Yet the health and medical force, as a special portion of the population, is our backup, our fallback. We need to stop losing them as we continue to lose much more of us.

As we thrust them to the frontline, it becomes observably evident through time that the rate at which we are losing our health workers is directly related to the increase in CoViD19 positive cases they need to manage.

Figure it out: We Lose Them as We Lose Us

Around the globe, 8,869,341 Covid19 cases have been reported with 465,113 deaths and 4,724,468 recoveries as of 20 June 2020 (www.worldometers.info).

Among Health Care Professionals, MedSacpe (a worldwide online community for health care workers under WebMD network) reported that 423 HCPs died with most number of recorded deaths in Italy, Iran, United States, United Kingdom and the Philippines (as of 14 April 2020; Esquiremag.ph).

As of June 2020, the Philippines has a total confirmed cases at 29,400 with 7,650 recoveries and 1,150 deaths. Last 19 May 2020, cases among Health Care Professionals were reported at 2,315 with 974 recoveries, and total deaths remaining at 35. Covid19 fatalities among Filipino doctors remain a great toll on the country’s brightest, among them Dr. Romeo Gregorio Greg Macasaet, one of the country’s best anesthesiologists; Dr. Dennis Ramon Tudtud, a prominent Cebu City oncologist and his wife Dr. Helen Evangelista Tudtud, pathologist; Dr. Marcelo Jaochico, the 1st awardee as Most Outstanding Doctor to the Barrios; Dr. Raul Jara, pillar of cardiology in the country; Dr. Francisco Lukban, noted geriatric cardiologist; Dr. Salvacion Gathchalian, a pediatric infectious disease expert and assistant director for the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine.

Even before the COVID19 outbreak, there’s a reported shortage of six million (6M) nurses around the world (World Health Organization). As of 04 June 2020, the International Council of Nurses reports that seven percent (07%) of all Covid19 cases are among health care workers; 600 nurses have died from the infection and 230,000 health workers contracted the disease (from a report of limited number of countries alone).

As days go by, trends are predicted to recur if vital and immediate protection measures for health care professionals were not put in place.

Protect Ourselves to Protect Health Care Professionals

Change is the only constant in the universe, yet, how ready are we for it? For the general public, the sudden imposition of change in the way we live as demanded by the pestilence has placed us all under the ramifications of culture shock. It is a general feeling of disorientation due to the immediate termination of freedom to make certain actions we have been accustomed to doing such as rushing to the workplace for livelihood, attending school for education, joining religious activities in churches for worship, marketing for food, and even simply taking a ride and walking in the park for leisure.

As we learn to function in the new normal, we need to understand that this change is a responsibility we exercise not solely for ourselves and our families but also for the community and the good of a new order.

• Social responsibility is an ethical theory, in which individuals are accountable for fulfilling their civic duty; the actions of an individual must benefit the whole of society. In this way, there must be a balance between economic growth and the welfare of society and the environment (Pachamama Alliance, 2019).


• Why We Need Social Control: Can’t Win Armless, Aimless!

In a new order of things, a cross-section of the population may not be able to adapt as readily as the others. Women and children are being reported to have become victims of domestic violence; some resort to transgressions and law-breaking as lifelong habits are difficult to transition and alter. Adaptation to new rules and norms is a MUST; thus, deviations cannot be tolerated for long due to the urgent need for people to follow instructions in order to help minimize contamination and spread of the disease.

This is when social control becomes essential and indispensable. It proposes that people's relationships, commitments, values, norms, and beliefs help them to conform and discourage them from breaking regulations. When these internal and external controls are understood and practiced, individuals will most probably lessen the propensity to commit deviant acts. Yet how much have these bonds been internalized and how much degradation have these bonds undergone from generation to generation?

• What makes us follow rules and regulations
  • Attachment to other individuals: Parents and other figures of authority play a crucial role in assisting a child to function in a new social environment. As such, it has been found that the greater the attachment to parents, the lower the likelihood of involvement in delinquent behavior. (Brannigan et al., 2002).
  • Commitment to following rules: The school is a second home to learners and it has a major influence on molding young minds towards taking on instructions positively. The authors Scott et al 2005 found that strong attachment to school was associated with less violent offending. As a result, they conclude that the important effect of school attachment in the lives of young people should not be underrated.
  • Involvement by typical social behaviors: It was found that religiosity had a negative effect on delinquency, which means that religion decreases the likelihood of a person going against rules due to the effect religion has on shaping his beliefs (Johnson et al. 2001).
  • Belief: Usually formed within a basic value system held by the community through generations which make peaceful and harmonious living possible. It includes our belief in the value of and respect for human life, equality among peoples, mutual aid especially during times of emergency, love of self and family, respect for government and other forms of leadership, love of country.

Cohesive Communities to the Frontline

If we need to flatten the curve, then we should seriously deescalate passing the buck. As communities with social as much as moral responsibility in this health crisis, we should reinstate ourselves to the front line as speedily as we can.

There is now an urgent “need to adopt bold health reforms that reimagine the role of communities in addressing public health issues.” (Socdem Asia, Breaking Through)

Communities require good governance, reasonable public investment, and political will to undertake a bolder role in public safety and protection. Cohesion and solidarity are the keys to performing such function.

Several global efforts have been laid down to help and protect healthcare workers and the general public as we all battle with Covid19, a number include the following:

• Exposure risk assessment and management of health care professionals in the context of COVID-19 virus (WHO).
• Forty million health professionals urge G20 leaders to put public health at the core of Covid19 pandemic and recovery.
• The recent G20 summit aims at 1 billion more universal health coverage around the world, for peoples to be better protected from health emergencies and enjoy living with better health and wellbeing.
• During the first-ever virtual World Health Assembly held on 18 May 2020 spearheaded by the (World Health Organization), China pledged US$2 billion Covid19 response for economic and social development to developing countries, Korea pledged US$100 million as humanitarian aid to safeguard health of all humanity.

How soon these options become reality and how much of these will trickle down to the people and the health care force for protection are still up in the air. While we all hope and wait for the miracle of a vaccine, there’s nothing more important to do than protect ourselves in order to alleviate the burden from our health care professionals.

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Useful Links:

• World Health Organization information on the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
• Philippines Department of Health updates about COVID-19.

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