Doctors have been on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic for more than two years — and the pressure has taken its toll. A new report found a rising number of physicians are suffering from substance abuse, with some even showing up to work drunk or high.
At the same time, the U.S. has been experiencing a growing mental health crisis, with Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warning last year that anxiety and depression levels rose during the pandemic — and were already climbing before COVID-19 arrived.
For example, around 1.5 million U.S. children experienced depression or anxiety during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, a 26 percent jump for children aged 3 to 17 between 2016 and 2020.
Now the crisis is becoming evident within the country’s health care industry, with 40 percent of health care workers indicating they felt anxiety or dread about going to work. Nearly half, 49 percent, also said they are either at their breaking point or looking for a new job due to the stress and trauma they endured while working in healthcare.
That’s from a report produced by All Points North (APN), a mental health company, that interviewed 1,000 U.S. health care workers aged 22 and older. Noah Nordheimer, founder and CEO of APN, said the results indicated an industry, “that’s been slow to respond to the growing demand for behavioral health services and often treating mental health as secondary to physical health.”
Even more alarming, APN found that over the last three months, 1 in 7 physicians admitted to consuming alcohol or controlled substances at work — and more than 1 in 5 said they consumed alcohol or controlled substances multiple times per day.
However, 1 in 5 health care workers said they have checked into rehab or a detox facility in the last three months.
APN noted that there are serious barriers to seeking help, with nearly 1 in 3 health care workers indicating they are too overworked and don’t have time, 23 percent are concerned colleagues and family will judge them, and another 23 percent said they’re afraid of getting their medical license revoked.
Men were also found to be struggling with mental health stigma more than women, with 58 percent of male health care workers reporting they are “at their breaking point or looking for a new job due to stress, burnout and trauma” they experienced on the job.
Men were also found to be 4.5 times more likely to consume alcohol or controlled substances while at work than women and 2.5 times more likely to consume alcohol or controlled substances up to 12 hours before their shift.
The bottom line: The country’s mental health crisis will continue if the necessary access and tools are not destigmatized as appropriate mental health treatment.
“We must act now, not only to support those in the healthcare system, but the country as a whole, before it’s too late,” said Nordheimer.
The risks could not be greater, as Murthy noted in an advisory specifically addressing health worker burnout, patient care and safety could be jeopardized through increased medical errors, hospital-acquired infections among patients and staffing shortages.
Murthy said annual burnout-related turnover costs are $9 billion for nurses and ranges from $2.6 billion to $6.3 billion for physicians.
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I HAVE THE GREATEST DOCTOR IN THE STATE OF ARIZONA AND THERE IS NO WAY HE WOULD DRINK ON THE JOB OR TAKE DRUGS. EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE MY DOCTOR. NO MATTER WHAT PROBLEM I HAVE HE FIXES IT. WHEN I SEE HIM I ALWAYS LEAVE FEELING BETTER. HE TELLS ME LIKE IT IS AND DOESN’T BEAT AROUND THE BUSH AND DOESN’T PUSH PILLS ON ME.
It does not help with all the division,hate along with the so called woke society demonizing White making everything about race. It should not matter the color of the health care provider period! They all got into providing care because of a true desire to help the sick! The media, politicians, society has bought into this crap and made it frightening for health care providers to say or do the wrong thing which also adds already high anxiety in providing care for fear of being accused of doing the wrong thing because of the color of your skin! Its become a very sick world with all the hatred. Yes racism has existed forever, but it has gotten completely out of hand! Not everyone is racist! I retired just because I can no longer be stressed out about fear of losing my license because God forbid I say the wrong thing to anyone! Not to mention the added stress that comes due to more documentation verses actually being able to provide care of the patient! Its more about how many can you see in a day and still get the documentation in on time, working extremely short staffed with so many leaving the medical field and no time for a life outside of medical with many of us having had to work way beyond our capacity to care for ourselves! The so called mandates did not help in that we lost many due to mandated vaccines (not because medical care providers are against vaccines) but we are against vaccines that have no real studies showing long term effects, and dictated by those who do not practice medicine on which meds can or can not be used due to Big Pharma wanting their revenue! and push the higher cost meds! ANY wonder why people are leaving the medical field?????