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Last modified on Sat 13 Mar 2021 13.40 EST
The trauma of watching thousands of patients die during the Covid-19 pandemic will force many intensive care staff out of healthcare unless they get substantial mental health support, the charity that represents ICU workers has warned.
The Intensive Care Society said half of ICU staff needed psychological support to help them deal with their experiences and added that some had already left their professions.
“This pandemic is the greatest crisis we’ve seen in a century,” said Dr Stephen Webb, the ICS president. “There is a danger that we will lose further staff in the future. We know there’s a risk of people falling ill, wanting to leave – not just intensive care but healthcare completely.”
Covid trauma will drive intensive care staff out of NHS, warns charity msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Mourning and melancholia: the psychological shadow-pandemic Why the Covid crisis is the biggest hit to mental health since the Second World War. When organs fail, the staff on intensive care units try to take over their work. Ventilators act as lungs, medicines delivered intravenously maintain a person’s heartbeat and blood pressure, filter machines prevent a fatal build-up of waste, and everything – every drop of fluid that enters the body and every drop that leaves it – is constantly monitored by a nurse. For days or weeks or even months the ICU staff maintain bodies that have all but shut down, and still on average around one in five of their patients will not make it.