10 October every year marks the “World Mental Health Day“, an opportunity to remind all healthcare stakeholders and citizens of the importance of mental health – in conjunction with physical health – and the importance of breaking the social stigmas around it, and raising its importance. The 2020’s theme is “Move for mental health: Increased investment in mental health”.
The EFN, in the representation of 3 million EU nurses, would like to remind all EU stakeholders and officials that since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak the frontline nurses have been greatly exposed to unprecedented situations, a lot of pressure and responsibility towards the decisions they had to make (which were often taken in insufficiently funded healthcare systems). Altogether, these have taken a toll on the mental health of nurses – which is something we should all tackle to improve the situation.
Last July, the EFN and GAMIAN-Europe jointly signed a statement calling on the EU institutions, all EU Member States, the health industry and all other health stakeholders to:
- Put in place national and local programmes to support frontline nurses who are caring for COVID-19 patients to preserve their mental health and avoid psychological trauma
- Condemn and combat the stigmatisation of nurses taking care of COVID-19 patients e.g. by means of official communications, also making use of the media.
- Foster the co-creation and co-design of political decision-making processes involving frontline nurses, concerning Infectious Disease of High Consequence preparedness, health protocols, training, and the selection of appropriate equipment.
- Work closely with the nursing professions to develop policies that protect nursing staff from unnecessarily difficult or unsafe working conditions, particularly when caring for COVID-19 patients.
- Allocate EU funds to support frontline nurses, re-allocating already agreed on budgets to inject funds into the nursing frontline and nursing research, with the aim to be better prepared for future COVID-19 waves