It was a funny old week last
week, full of ups and downs. Having posted my blog last Sunday focusing on the
problems there are in GP land, I began to feel more and more like Nostradamus as the media played catch up with the
issues. Nostradamus was a French astrologer, doctor and predicter of future
events. His first book was published 400 years before I was born. It is said
that he predicted many things, including the Great Fire of London, the rise of
Adolf Hitler, both the World Wars, the first moon landing, and even 9/11 and
the attacks on the twin towers in New York. He also prophesied the end of the
world. As far as I’m aware, this is one prediction that has happened yet.
Mind you last week’s news might
make some people feel the end of the world is imminent. Covid19 hasn’t gone
away, Brexit is hitting all parts of our lives, including empty shelves in our
supermarkets, the cost of keeping ourselves warm going up fourfold, dead pigs
stacking up on farms, and fruit rotting in the fields. To crown it all, those
folk at the Government Communications Department issued a notice to say there was
no need to panic buy petrol, as there was plenty in the refineries, immediately
firing the starting gun for people to panic and spend hours queuing to fill up
their cars. It was all pretty grim stuff, and I have to admit to resorting to what
Frank Lloyd Wright described as ‘chewing gum for the eyes’ – watching TV
to tune out the ever depressing zeitgeist.
Despite the fact we have four
televisions in our house, we seldom spend much time during Summer sitting
inside watching any of them. I was once an avid watcher of ‘Come dine with me’
and ‘Four in a bed’ and would watch every episode every week – I know, I
know, but even these programmes get seldom viewed these days. However, I was
home alone last week and in the dark evenings, I played catch up. There wasn’t
a great deal that appealed, and flipping through the channels I came across one
of those ambulance programmes, which follow ambulance crews over a 24 hour
period. The programme was part-way through as I settled down to watch the
stories being told.
Underlying each of the stories were
often high expressed emotions of fear, anxiety, despair, loss, coupled with
pain and discomfort, which folk couldn’t deal with themselves. The paramedics
featured were professional, compassionate, kind and very human. Whilst I got a
sense of the emotions the ambulance call handlers were going through; it was
hard to discern what each of the paramedics might be experiencing as they dealt
with the different calls. If I’m honest, I was caught up with what I observed
was the way they interacted with each of their patients, and didn’t think how
facing so much trauma day after day might be impacting upon their mental health
and wellbeing.
That changed for me last week following
my participation in a Wellbeing workshop for Chairs, Chief Executives, Wellbeing
Guardians and Staff-side Chairs. It was facilitated by my colleague AlisonBalson, who is Director of Workforce at my old Trust, Wrightington, Wigan and
Leigh Teaching Hospital. Just an aside, the term ‘workforce’ really
grates, as does the term ‘staff’ when referring to our colleagues. I’m
on a crusade to change the language and narrative around the folk we stand
beside in delivering our health care services. But I digress.
The workshop started with three
powerful stories, told by the individuals themselves. The first was by a former
paramedic who took us through her slow descent into depression and suicidality.
I’m not sure how she got through the telling of her story. I and, I suspect,
many others, were choked up as we listened to her tale. She had risen through
the ranks, and was both a highly skilled advanced paramedic as well as holding
a managerial role. Her mental health problems stemmed from an incident she was
part of, that occurred in the very early hours of the morning, involving a
serious road traffic accident in which five young people were seriously injured.
She told us what it felt like to
manage the situation, having to wait over an hour to get the support she needed
in terms of other ambulance crews and rescue services. All the young people
involved in the accident eventually lost their lives. She went to all their
funerals. Over the following six months she couldn’t get the trauma of what she
had been involved in out of her mind. Her performance as a paramedic suffered,
her family relationships disintegrated, and she experienced clinical depression
to the extent of contemplating taking her life. It was a powerful story of
vulnerability.
It was also a story of the need
for us all of to recognise when something is not right with our colleagues, and
the need for organisations to find way to ensure the mental health and wellbeing
of individuals is a paramount and continuous concern. The workshop took us beyond
the impressive array of wellbeing interventions and support that’s been
developed during the pandemic. Good as these are, a more fundamental approach
is required that ensures we don’t put colleagues in situations where their
mental health might be impacted without there being a compassionate and caring response
proactively available. I’m signed up to this and will work with colleagues to
make sure it happens.
Finally, my up and down week is
so, in part, due to remembering one of my younger brothers, Christopher, who
died this past week, 14 years ago. He was a rascal, he was indomitable, a loving
father and a generous brother. His premature passing seems so unfair and I miss
him very much.
Ps Ambulance Series 8, starts
this Thursday, 21.00 on BBC, and features the North West Ambulance Service –
just saying.
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