Look after your health, then do no harm

SEPT 17 has been declared World Patient Safety Day by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which sees patient safety as a critical global public health issue.

No one should be harmed when seeking care and all stakeholders in the healthcare system must work together to improve patient safety. However, while due attention is placed on the patient’s care and safety, we often neglect the needs, concerns and well-being of healthcare workers.

Without a safe and healthy environment for individuals working in the system, the goal of ensuring patient safety is at risk.

Healthcare workers face a wide range of hazards at work. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (Niosh) statistics show occupational injuries and illnesses in the health sector to be among the highest compared to other professions. Workplace stress also causes mental health problems. Travel accidents also add to the problem, as between 2014 and 2016, Niosh recorded over 500 such cases involving various categories of healthcare workers serving in hospitals under the Health Ministry. Some were fatal ambulance accidents.

Largely because of selflessness and sense of duty, many healthcare workers would attend to emergency and patient’s need first even when off-duty. Very often, unrealistic perception morphs into huge patient, organisational and societal expectations and demands. Worse still, certain policies, practices, inherent workplace power structure and working culture perpetuate the problem.

As healthcare involves the human dimension, they are uniquely exposed to psychological stress and burnout, and many suffer without support and help.

In the past three years, more than 850 medical graduates who were undergoing housemanship in the country’s public hospitals resigned due to various reasons. Instead of perceiving our young and fresh novice doctors as unsuitable individuals who are unable to cope with high working demands, perhaps we should ask if our hospitals are healthy workplaces where all stakeholders actively promote and protect the health, safety and well-being of every one.

The truth is individuals working across the entire spectrum of care who come in close contact with patients, such as the doctor, nurse, pharmacist, therapist, counsellor and social worker, are vulnerable to shock, guilt, anger, isolation, depression and suicide because of stress, huge workload, long hours, fatigue, high-pressure environment and unrealistic demands.

When medical errors occur, root cause analysis is often a pointless exercise if systemic rather than human factors are studied. It’s worse if it leads to punitive action. Even when there are no medical errors, healthcare workers may never forgive themselves for losing a patient. And when you lose a fellow colleague to suicide, it leaves an unspoken void.

In 2017, the World Medical Association amended the Declaration of Geneva, the modern-day Hippocratic Oath, to include the importance of members of the medical profession to attend to their own health, well-being and abilities in order to provide care of the highest standard.

At our home front, when Tun Dr Siti Hasmah, in her Mothers Day message, touchingly advised all mothers to take care of themselves first before the children, perhaps the call also resonated among healthcare workers. After all, we are all just human.

CHEAH CHUN FAI , Ipoh