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While frontline healthcare workers are doing their best to take care of us during the coronavirus pandemic, due to long hours some of them are finding it difficult to take care of themselves.
Key points:
- Frontline healthcare workers are busy during the coronavirus pandemic
- Many of them are finding they do not have time to do basic things such as shopping
- Adopt a Healthcare Worker Facebook pages are connecting workers with people who want to help them
In response, a number of so-called Adopt a Healthcare Worker groups have sprung up on Facebook to help out.
"Initially with me, the hours I was working, I actually struggled to get the basic essentials like getting some meat, same as everyone else, struggling to find toilet paper," Sydney nurse Sarah Dunn said.
"You'll find a lot of nurses are very independent people. We're the helpers, not the helpees, so it's very odd reaching out to someone and saying, 'Hey, I need help'."
Ms Dunn joined one of the new Facebook groups where she met Penny Chalhoub.
"I think in a time like this you want to help whoever you can help — at this point in time that's our nurses and our doctors," Ms Chalhoub said.
Ms Chalhoub and her children bought the groceries Ms Dunn needed and delivered them to her front door.
'I had run out of washing powder'
Nurse Kerrie Chapman, who lives alone with her dog Opie in Melbourne, also sought help on one of the Facebook groups.
"I had a sick dog, a whole lot of things were happening, and I had worked a whole lot of days in a row and had run out of food basics," Ms Chapman said.
"I just heard the supermarkets had been stripped bare and I had run out of washing powder to wash my uniforms."
Amanda Mortensen was happy to step in. In self-isolation with cold symptoms, she wiped all the products down with disinfectant before packaging them up to send to Ms Chapman.
Health experts warn that well-meaning people must be careful their help does not pose a risk of infection to healthcare workers.
"We need some human interaction and the things that make us feel connected and engaged," Helen Schultz, a consultant psychiatrist from Melbourne, said.
"But I do feel we have to put risk and safety above those ideas around wellbeing."
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'Keep up the good work'
Ms Mortensen wrote Ms Chapmen a note to send with her package.
"You're a legend Kerrie!" she said.
"Just a message to give you some acknowledgement and to keep going. I know you're working your guts out mate. Keep up the good work."
Ms Chapman was overjoyed when she received the goods.
"I just want to say thank you to Amanda. I've just unpacked this box of goodies that she has given me with eggs and a note, some meals and most excitingly washing powder," she said.
"And chicken for Opie who's been unwell lately."
Topics: doctors-and-medical-professionals, health, infectious-diseases-other, diseases-and-disorders, community-and-society, australia, sydney-2000
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