The pandemic pressure has passed bill to the toilets. According to the figures of the 2021 report of the PAIME (Program of Comprehensive Care for the Sick Doctor), although in the last five years there has been a 30% increase in cases of doctors who come to their services, this 2021 the record has been broken.
This last year, the second in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, has grown by 75% the number of physicians who have had to be attended by psychiatric pathologies compared to the previous year.
The Illustrious College of Physicians of Madrid highlights the words of the psychiatrist Enriqueta Ochoa Mangado, care manager of the program, who emphasizes the work overload that all doctors have suffered in the last two years and that has been added to the already existed previously.
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In addition, adds Ochoa Mangado, “the severity of patients who have attended together with the difficult conciliation between work with risk of contagion and family life, the infection of oneself or relatives and the chronic nature of the pandemic, have led to a big stress factor.
There has also been an increase in the number of medical residents who have been treated at the PAIME compared to the previous year, from 36 in 2020 to 51 in 2021, but in their case from the PAIME they point out that they have shown “high resilience” in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, “despite the fact that they have had to assume changes in the training itinerary/rotations and have been in first line in patient care”.
“In this group of professionals, the care provided at PAIME has had to do directly with problems related to circumstances of this professional stage (insecurity, difficulties in managing emotions/relationships), or of a structural type and related to the system (problems in teacher supervision, extension of working hours/excessive shifts)”, says Dr. Leira, who is in charge of care for medical residents.
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The impact of the pandemic It has been especially high in some specialists such as pulmonologists, nursing home doctors and doctors from the SUMMA 112 Emergency Service. “Many of them who have had to attend to many patients who have died at their hands”, along with the primary care physiciansexplains Ochoa Mangando. In addition, there has been a significant number of hospital admissions and physicians with addictive pathologies.
In specific figures, of the 227 doctors treated in the PAIME program during 2021, 176 are assistants and 51 are resident doctors. Of these, 76 are men (33.5%) and 151 are women (76.5%), with a mean age of 44.11 years.
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The 227 doctors have generated more than 1,200 psychiatric consultations. Of the total of these doctors, 16 have attended group therapy to treat their addictive problems (9 currently continue). 90 of them have already been discharged, as of December 31, 137 continued in the program.
The next step will be, as Ochoa warns, the pospandemia: “In the most complicated phase of the pandemic, doctors have turned to work, but it will be when the situation improves that we will begin to express emotions and contained reactions. It is at stake mental health of the medical professionals. Although they are used to situations of high demand, this one is extraordinary and complex. In this sense, it is important to work on the prevention of possible disorders of this professional group looking to the future, to the post-pandemic stage”.
