By Dr Dominic Pimenta
In the earliest days of the pandemic, as reports of a crashing wave of a mystery virus toppled healthcare system after system, from Wuhan, to Iran, to Italy, I stopped sleeping. Whole nights, punctuated by the usual wake-up duties of my kids, of staring at the ceiling, mind racing.
I remember this peculiar disquiet vividly as it was echoed back to me repeatedly by colleagues. As a tribe of healthcare professionals, our collective ears were pricked to the incoming danger. Even before the pandemic storm had hit, our mutual connection, our shared ethos, was brought sharply into focus.
Those working in healthcare have always been part of a singular tribe, exposed daily to the capital L life event of births and deaths and life-changing illness that the general public would see once or twice in a lifetime. That exposure is both a hazard and a privilege - the moral injury of constant exposure to the most challenging times of others’ lives but also the enormous privilege to be there to help, and the unique perspective it gives us on our own lives.
Tribe mentality
It was this tribe mentality that got us through that first wave of the pandemic when it eventually hit, like soldiers in the trenches.
And like soldiers on a distant battlefield our tribe would be isolated, facing the worst moment in their careers, and would need all the help they could get. It was this realisation that led us to start our charity, now called the Healthcare Workers’ Foundation, on March 20th 2020. Our idea was simple - to provide as much physical and mental protection to healthcare workers as we could, by whatever means possible. We were overwhelmed by the response, by the public, raising £1.3m and nearly £3m in gifts in kind to date, and by business, innovating to source and even manufacture reuseable and sustainable PPE. By mid-April we had delivered to over half a million healthcare workers, everything from CE-marked reuseable 3D printed visors to childcare support grants and professional online counselling, from tens of thousands of hot meals to hospitals, to skin care to COVID-safe surgery endoscopy machines.
And despite the manic pace of the charity, it was a relief to find something positive to help, even a fraction. Strangely once we were in the thick of it, I started sleeping again.
1,500 health and care workers lost
The charity continued to do all it could to protect healthcare workers directly, developed a snorkel mask with Oxford Inspired, built a bespoke platform to engage and connect staff to services, and even won two awards from the Royal Academy of Engineers. This was but a drop in the ocean in the enormous efforts of all our colleagues, working in new environments, taking on new duties and heavier workloads. As a tribe we made a colossal and collective effort, all working together, to get through.
But despite everything, too many of us didn’t make it through.
Since March 2020 we have lost approximately 1,500 health and social care workers, 1,500 members of our tribe. Corrected for population this is the worst reported rate in Europe and amongst the worst in the world. Each of those healthcare workers left grieving families behind, and hundreds of children.
When we lose a parent at a young age we lose more than a dear loved one, we lost financial and emotional security, connections, mentoring, educational opportunity. We cannot let this tragedy be compounded on to the next generation as well. Our tribe must look after its own.
The birth of the families programme
That’s why the HWF started its Families Programme, supporting the bereaved healthcare families with legal support, bereavement support, counselling, respite breaks, and tutoring. And recently we expanded our programme to launch a new Memorial Fund, a £5,000 annual higher education fund to support the children of bereaved healthcare workers to complete their courses, to still achieve their potential despite the tragedy that has befallen them.
If you are, or know someone, who might benefit from the Families Programme then please email us today on families@healthcareworkersfoundation.org.
If you want to help, please spread the word amongst your local and national professional networks, sign up to our platform, HealthChain, for your own access to our services. And you can always simply donate or fundraise for us, by visiting healthcareworkersfoundation.org/donate or texting HWF to 70085 to give £3 a month.