COVID-19: THE CHANGE NO ONE ANTICIPATED AND THE MENTAL HEALTH IMPACT

The outbreak of Novel Corona Virus at the end of 2019 was never thought by many that it could bring forth such forced changes which it has successfully done in global economic landscape, workplaces and patterns of work, families and our overall health and well being. The COVID-19 was trivialized in many quarters and likened to the outbreaks of SARS and MERS that were successfully confined and could not spread beyond Asia and the Middle East regions. But Corona Virus was quick to travel as fast as man could travel and soon landed in every region of the world from where it started making quick entries into countries, cities and later communities. And today, the whole world has changed so drastically to the extent that we now use words as “the new world order”, “the new normal” and many other words that have been introduced in describing the new world we have all found ourselves.

According to Warren Buffet “What we learnt from history is that people do not learn from history”. This is very correct when you relate the COVID-19 to the Spanish Flu of 1918 which was also characterized with shutting down of businesses, places of worship and others while people were forced into isolation. At the end of the Pandemic which has been described as the deadliest plague of the 20^th century, most of the survivors suffered heightened mental health conditions, sleep disturbances, depression, mental distraction, dizziness, pandemic related suicide and those who were able to return to work had difficulties in copping at work. This sums up as pandemic impact on mental health.

Are we going to expect similar conditions as Post COVID-19 health outcomes? Predictably, yes. Many of such cases are already spiking and I think what we should be doing in clinical environment is to start documenting cases properly as we see them. Heightened mental health tension induced by COVID-19 is already here with us. The words “Isolation”, “Quarantine”, “Infodemic” and “New Normal” are some of the new words frequently used in COVID-19 and are greatly influencing mental health and well being.

In an attempt to control the spread of this Novel Corona Virus, countries were forced to lock down and businesses within those countries were forced to shut their doors, employees and employees along with their families were forced into isolation. This was never in the 2020 plan of any of us and the pandemic had to override personal and organisational plans, disrupting them to the disadvantage of people whose mood suddenly switched from living to quest for survival. Isolation removed the concept of social integration and put to hold the support we draw from our collective co-existent, broke down ties and threw people into solitary living where a number of them suffered high degree of loneliness and a number of “live-alone” employees suffered lone worker syndrome. This was characterized with fear, anxiety, uncertainties, longer hours of work and irregularities in sleeping patterns leading to varied degree of mental health conditions.

COVID-19 will be over some day, lock downs are being relaxed and people are getting set to return to work, one thing we must keep in mind is that the mental state of these workers may have been impacted adversely by several of the negatives that came with COVID-19. Having this in mind, there is an urgency in reviewing the ways we will relate to workers upon return to work and communication along this line must commence while employees are still working from home.

Do we need to retrain our Managers, Human Resources Team and others on a whole new way of communication and handling of employees? Yes, we should. Remember, there is a whole new work order and we are also dealing with people who are coming back from isolation and not vacation. A number of them are currently flat while others maybe extremely suspicious of everyone and everything. The closeness of seats have been removed to meet the physical distancing protocol required in COVID-19, fewer people are returning to work while others still work remotely, the buddie support system is gone and replaced with the COVID-19 legacy of no “no hug and no hand shake”. Adjusting to all these changes comes with its own mental health constrain and proper management of people has to be the new skills in high demand in the new work order.

These level of heightened uncertainties put further strain on both employees and employers. While employers work so hard for gradual re-integration of employees to the new work pattern, we should also keep in mind that these employers are human beings who also went on isolation and they are not immune to the mental health issues are highlighted above. They do not live in space, they are a part of the society and also need to be cared for. The need to also create a support system for this category of people is extremely urgent because what they mostly do currently is to attend to the need of employees in attempt to get them comfortable. Most of these employers if not cautioned could suffer compassion fatigue and knowing this, we need to consider the option of getting an external mental health support to pull through this phase together.

Management system has changed, they are not just designed for only the people that we see in the offices daily but now we have people who must work remotely, the system must now be reviewed to accommodate these two categories of workers. Global economy has been predicted to be adversely impacted but what does this mean to businesses and employees who work in these businesses? Will this lead to loss of jobs? Will this lead to pay cuts? Has the future of work come faster than predicted? Will some kind of jobs or roles still be needed in workplaces? Will my organisation survive this phase? These and many more questions are raising the level of uncertainties and increasing the mental health burden of both employees and employers.

In the midst of our collective and personal plans came COVID-19, now the world of work has totally changed leaving us all to learn and adjust to the new workplaces and work patterns that are gradually unfolding.

Ehi Iden

ehi@ohsm.com.ng