workforce
“The psychological impact of that is going to be huge as
well,” Smith says. “Only a month ago, I was talking in the media
about how we haven’t seen the effects of a bushfire season like
this before, and now all of a sudden we’re layering a pandemic on
top of this.
“We simply just don’t know what this is going to do. We know
everyone is already exhausted. We’re now layering a fear response
on top of that, so people are actually really scared that they are
going to take this virus home and give it to their loved ones.
“The scary reality of working in healthcare at the moment is
that we just don’t know what’s going to confront our healthcare
workers as they walk through the doors each day, what the longterm
psychological toll of that will be; I don’t think anyone will
even want to hazard a guess at the moment.”
Smith points to a phenomenon known as collective trauma,
which is when an event such as a war or pandemic is so
life‐changing that it disrupts our norms, values and rituals, which
are the foundations of social order. It can change the way we think
about the world, undermine our perceptions of safety, and rupture
social bonds, and, ultimately, has the ability to change entire
countries for years to come.
“We witness things as far back as the Holocaust, for example,
that actually left a permanent imprint like an actual collective
trauma on an entire group,” Smith says.
“We will certainly see that on particular groups that have been
really badly impacted by this. I’m thinking certainly the Italian
healthcare workers, the Italian communities, for example, who
really bore the brunt of this pandemic early on and had to make
horrific decisions around rationing care.
“Those doctors who had to decide, ‘Okay, anyone over the age
of 60 does not get intensive care. Anyone with a serious illness
who is unlikely to survive, they simply don’t get any care.’ Imagine
the impact on that collective group of healthcare workers, the
collective community.”
As an expert in disaster and emergency response, Smith admits
that it is an occupational habit to think and plan for the worst.
However, she does believe that Australia and its government
are doing the best they can, currently, to fight the spread of
the virus.
“I have to say I think Australia and our government at all levels
have done incredibly well with a very complex situation, a very
rapidly evolving situation. They brought together some fantastic
expertise to help guide us through this. I think we only have to
compare ourselves to some other countries to show that we have
had some solid leadership.
“We’ve locked down borders early. It would have been nice to
have maybe a little bit more in the medical stockpile, but again,
we’ve had unprecedented situations occurring. Who could have
known we would’ve lived through an unprecedented bushfire
season right before a pandemic? Sometimes they are just things
we can’t plan for. Given everything that’s happened, I think
we’ve done remarkably well.” ■
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