When Health Care Workers Get Sick

Absenteeism in the health care work place has a problematic rippling effect on the other workers and patients. In hospitals and nursing homes, keeping each shift “comfortably” covered is no easy task. Because hospitals and nursing homes must function under a unique and high-pressured clinical setting, a specialized employee wellness program is needed to keep both health care workers and their patients healthy.

What happens when health care workers get sick? They don’t show up for work leaving a strain on the remaining workers. Patient care is often prioritized so the most critical services are maintained while less necessary care can be postponed. Emergency procedures, medication and meals cannot wait. What other tasks can be put off? Showers, completing forms, answering questions and checking in on patients are temporarily put on the back burner. It is a difficult scenario for dedicated workers who hate to decline a patient’s request when circumstances are beyond their control.

What happens when sick health care workers come back to work? Are they really better? Will they relapse and call in sick again? Are there factors in the work place contributing to their poor health? Do they have adequate health care as an employee of a health care institution? Is there a way to assist them without infringing on their privacy rights? Can health care administrators prevent the burnout that leads to high turnover rates in hospitals and nursing homes?

Health care workers also have a significant number of health problems. There is a high rate of smoking and obesity in nurses. The British Medical Journal has reported medical doctors die from suicide, poisonings and cirrhosis of the liver. In 2003, The Journal of the American Medical Association touched on the subject of sick doctors in the article, “Care of the Dying Doctor.” An unhealthy staff is an overlooked epidemic that mirrors the rest of society.

Getting health care workers well and keeping them well takes the same effort that their patients have to take. They need to follow the same advice: healthy diet, physical fitness, and stress management. It is not easy in general, but the health care worker sees the tragic results of other people’s stress: trauma, disease, suffering and death. Their continual exposure to other people’s ill health forces them to carry the extra burden of caring for others as well as themselves.

Health care workers must not set their well being aside. A specialized health care worker wellness program can be implemented to reinforce healthy habits so they can inspire their patients to do the same. It requires an honest look at working conditions, and introducing positive incentives. Employee wellness programs have statistically shown positive benefits to a corporation’s bottom line as well as employee morale.

Health care workers may have better knowledge of what it takes to promote health and it should be encouraged at work as well as home. This “bridging” allows the health care worker to remain consistent in their efforts all the time. Hospitals and nursing homes have the opportunity to invest in their health care workers with a unique wellness program that will help their workers and benefit the public.