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Healthcare in places like South Dakota is personal. We’re asking doctors, nurses, and staff to care for COVID patients who could be their former teachers, members of their church, cousins, or neighbors. (1/5)
When a COVID patient dies in a rural South Dakota hospital, the healthcare team probably knows that patient’s spouse, their children, and their grandchildren. (2/5)
When a rural South Dakota ambulance crew has to transport an acute COVID patient, there is a good chance it is someone they chat with in the grocery store or a someone whose door they knocked on during the band fundraisers in high school. (3/5)
This is always the case in rural medicine and it is typically one of the beautiful parts of living where we live. COVID is amplifying the feeling of frustration and helplessness our frontline healthcare workers are experiencing. (4/5)
We’re in the midst of the storm right now. When we see our way through to the other side, the accumulated grief of healthcare workers in our state will be among the debris. Our communities have to be ready to address it. (5/5)
I don’t have all of the answers, but the path forward has to include:
access to quality mental health care
ability/space to acknowledge the trauma & grief
recruitment & retention efforts that align with a changed workforce and industry
access to quality mental health care ability/space to acknowledge the trauma & grief recruitment & retention efforts that align with a changed workforce and industry
