Josephine Williams, RN, M Ed

The oth­er day I was talk­ing to my friend, a teacher, who lost all her pos­ses­sions and had her house dam­aged dur­ing Hur­ri­cane Beryl. She want­ed time off from work but was de­nied leave. She ad­mit­ted to hav­ing night­mares, hear­ing the gal­vanised roof be­ing ripped off, cry­ing and feel­ing hope­less. Light­ning, rain and thun­der now re­mind her of what Beryl did on her birth­day.

The post-trau­mat­ic stress that she is feel­ing is re­al. How can she men­tal­ly pre­pare to go back to the class­room and sup­port her stu­dents when she needs sup­port as well?

She isn’t the on­ly one. First re­spon­ders on dis­as­ter scenes wit­ness the de­struc­tion first­hand. One first re­spon­der in Bar­bu­da re­calls his sto­ry about Hur­ri­cane Ir­ma in 2017. He heard peo­ple cry­ing for help and was fright­ened about the death toll and for his daugh­ter’s safe­ty, but he had no time to process every­thing be­cause he had a job to do—to go and res­cue those in need—putting the needs of oth­ers first. He didn’t have the op­tion to stop work­ing and fo­cus on the safe­ty of his fam­i­ly, po­ten­tial loss of his house and be­long­ings, or even his own fear.

Cli­mate change af­fects every­one phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly, but health­care pro­fes­sion­als are of­ten the most ex­posed to mul­ti­ple cli­mate change-fu­elled prob­lems in the work­place. Storms and floods don’t on­ly cause dam­age to hous­es, busi­ness­es, fur­ni­ture and trea­sured items, but can cause an in­crease in in­fec­tions. Changes in tem­per­a­ture can make ex­ist­ing con­di­tions like asth­ma, chron­ic dis­eases and poor men­tal health worse.

With hur­ri­canes mov­ing from cat­e­go­ry one to cat­e­go­ry four in a mat­ter of hours, hun­dreds are in­jured, many die, and first re­spon­ders must deal with the fall­out. All these sit­u­a­tions lead to surges in ad­mis­sions and stays in the hos­pi­tal. This in­crease in the work­load, along with un­der­staffing and lim­it­ed re­sources, caus­es stress, anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion among health­care staff, lead­ing to burnout.

Fe­male health­care work­ers are more af­fect­ed by these prob­lems, as they are of­ten re­spon­si­ble for young chil­dren or old­er rel­a­tives. Peo­ple who al­ready have an ex­ist­ing men­tal health prob­lem are even more at risk of sui­cide, and yet, pre­serv­ing work­ers’ men­tal health is not of­ten a pri­or­i­ty in the work­place.

That said, “work­place stress can harm health­care work­ers’ pro­fes­sion­al­ism, qual­i­ty of care de­liv­ery, ef­fi­cien­cy and over­all qual­i­ty of life,” so why don’t these in­di­vid­u­als speak up, or talk to their work­places about it? The an­swer is that the stig­ma that is as­so­ci­at­ed with men­tal ill-health in the Caribbean, es­pe­cial­ly in the work­place, is re­al. This is why health pro­fes­sion­als are afraid to seek help and speak out, even when they are strug­gling. They won­der whether it is worth los­ing their cowork­ers’ re­spect, or even their jobs.

The stig­ma of men­tal ill-health is not lim­it­ed to our is­lands. Stud­ies world­wide high­light the in­crease in sui­cides in the med­ical pro­fes­sion, es­pe­cial­ly among fe­males.

We can see and feel the ef­fects of cli­mate change as the days con­tin­ue to get hot­ter, mean­ing that work­place stress for first re­spon­ders, health­care pro­fes­sion­als and teach­ers will like­ly wors­en. So, what can we do about it?

I asked sev­er­al health­care work­ers and teach­ers how they cope with the stress they ex­pe­ri­ence in the work­place, and these are their sug­ges­tions.

Start by build­ing per­son­al health skills us­ing cop­ing strate­gies. Take fre­quent breaks from work and ac­knowl­edge that you are burned out. This can help with re­cov­ery. Find a trust­ed friend or psy­chi­a­trist to talk to. Pray­ing helps many.

Cre­ate a healthy work­space through open com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Pro­vide ways for staff to ex­press con­cerns, give time­ly feed­back, and ad­dress those con­cerns. Chan­nels can in­clude reg­u­lar team meet­ings, sug­ges­tion box­es, and anony­mous feed­back sys­tems.

Cre­ate a sup­port­ive work en­vi­ron­ment that pro­vides men­tal health re­sources, so em­ploy­ees feel re­spect­ed, val­ued, and ap­pre­ci­at­ed. Ad­min­is­tra­tors and pol­i­cy­mak­ers play a key role in fos­ter­ing such an en­vi­ron­ment.

Men­tal health aware­ness: Let’s not wait un­til Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month to ac­knowl­edge men­tal health. Or­gan­ise men­tal health aware­ness pro­grammes, work­shops, and talks for the em­ploy­ees.

Pro­vide sup­port in the work­place: Em­ploy­ees, in­clud­ing health­care pro­fes­sion­als, should feel com­fort­able seek­ing help and not be stig­ma­tised or afraid of job loss due to men­tal health is­sues. It is es­sen­tial to en­sure these ser­vices are avail­able and pro­mote well­ness.

En­cour­age stress man­age­ment: Have a room ded­i­cat­ed to yo­ga or med­i­ta­tion. Re­cent­ly, I vis­it­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois Chica­go’s School of Nurs­ing, and I was im­pressed. They have a med­i­ta­tion room where staff can take a break should the need arise.

Equal­i­ty on the job: Pro­vid­ing equal op­por­tu­ni­ties for staff de­vel­op­ment and train­ing.

What­ev­er your pro­fes­sion and wher­ev­er you work, as cli­mate dis­as­ters in­crease, it’s time to leave the stig­ma be­hind, recog­nise that our minds are part of our bod­ies, and pri­ori­tise men­tal health in the work­place.

Key Re­source: Chap­ter-7_Men­tal-health_Re­search-for-Ac­tion-on-Cli­mate-Change-and-Health-in-the-Caribbean_2024.pdf (earth­medic.com)

Josephine Williams is an Earth­Medic and Earth­Nurse As­so­ciate; Cer­ti­fied Emer­gency Nurse; and Clin­i­cal In­struc­tor, UWI, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da