'If you allow yourself to feel it, you can't go on working' - Dr Caroline Lee on healthcare workers & burnout

Dr Caroline Lee, a Gauteng anaesthetist, joined healthcare journalist Chris Bateman of BizNews to discuss burnout and the mental health issues faced by healthcare workers in South Africa. Dr Lee is the co-founder of the Healthcare Workers Care Network, an eight-year-old burnout and mental distress support group for medical professionals. She says that there was a great need for an organisation like this even before Covid hit, but the pandemic has aggravated the situation immensely because workers are exhausted and constantly exposed to death. "When you're feeling more tired or it's just too much - sometimes you see two patients, three patients in the same ICU dying at the same time, or somebody that you've really made an effort for, or somebody [who's family you've met] and you don't want them to die, for example - those ones trigger an overflow and all of a sudden [you] just break down," she explains. As medical professionals are already mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted, Dr Lee says they feel like giving up when they hear anti-vaccine arguments. "The healthcare workers that experience a lot of heartbreak, a lot of despair, were like, no, we need to give up now. We've been working so hard and this is what you give us. You know, after all we've done and after all the work with trying to save lives, what are you doing? Why are you causing more death, more suffering?" Her advice is to ask anti-vaxxers what they're afraid of. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices