The news is from a few weeks ago but only now begins to circulate: a 37-year-old nurse who worked in a well-known Lombard public health company, in an intensive coronary unit transformed with the advent of the pandemic in the Covid area, he took his own life in the ward bathrooms. He had been found by a colleague, suspicious of his long absence, with a bag, with a venous access to the arm and an empty bottle of physiological solution. Only a few days ago the judiciary, dismissing the case, established that the man voluntarily took his own life: he leaves behind a wife and a 3-year-old son. The nurse had turned to the territorial psychiatric service several times for help, due to the stress accumulated for some time. He suffered from depression. His colleagues report an evident deterioration with the mass return of Covid-19 cases.
Suicides among nurses and social health workers: the precedents
In March, a 34-year-old nurse who worked in the intensive care of San Gerardo in Monza decided to take her own life after testing positive for the virus: even in that case, colleagues told of a heavy stress due to the health emergency and fear of having infected someone. On April 28, a nurse from the Pneumology department of the San Carlo hospital in Milan took her life. In June, however, a 34-year-old Oss (social health worker) who worked in the intensive care of a Milanese hospital was saved by his sister: he said he was unable to overcome the pain of the too many deaths he witnessed and was diagnosed a post traumatic stress disorder.
Healthcare personnel exposed to Covid and psychological distress
Doctors, nurses and health personnel are not only exposed to Covid: depression, anxiety, insomnia are just some of the psychological and psychological pathologies that arise while facing the pandemic. A scientific study published as early as March (“Factors associated with mental health outcomes among health care workers exposed to Coronavirus disease 2020”) reported the results of a survey on 1,257 health workers from 34 Chinese hospitals who had to assist infected patients: 50 percent developed some form of depression, 45 percent of them suffered from anxiety, 34 percent from insomnia, and 71.5 percent had generalized psychological distress. According to a survey conducted by the State University of Milan on 650 health workers and carried out during the Covid emergency, 4 out of 10 showed mental discomfort: among the causes, stress, high emotional load, long hours, worries are reported. to contract the intention or to pass it on to their relatives, the lack of adequate support in the workplace and the social stigma due to the increased exposure to the disease.
On 11 April, Inail in collaboration with the National Council of the Psychologists Association published a document for the management of stress and prevention of burnout in health workers in the Covid 19 emergency to “provide support and psychological support to health workers, through the dissemination of a methodological path and tools useful for the activation of individual intervention services in the area “.
De Rosa (M5s): Psychological support is needed for those we used to call heroes
Of “tragedies that highlight the burden to which people whose efforts seem to be forgotten are subjected, with the same speed with which we have begun to call them heroes” the leader of the 5 Star Movement in the Lombardy Region, Massimo De, speaks to fanpage.it Pink. The Lombardy Regional Council on 2 December approved the Agenda presented by councilor Raffaele Erba (5 Star Movement) in which it is asked to ensure support for those who are facing the coronavirus on the front line. “We asked the Lombardy Region – explains De Rosa – to commit itself through the allocation of resources, equal to two million euros, in order to make available, free of charge, psychological support for professionals, families, young people and anyone who has experienced the signing Covid experience. Not only did we get the Region to commit itself to establishing the figure of the school psychologist. During the budget session, under discussion in the next few days, we will present amendments aimed at giving economic concreteness to the commitments previously signed by the Region regarding our proposals ”.
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