I'm seeing a lot of leaks from nurses and doctors to the media in NSW. This happened in Vic last year, and while I personally don't believe in leaking (because it leaves you with zero control over your message, to be manipulated at will), I understand why. 1/
Healthcare workers are usually the *last* people to leak to the press. Non-disclosure clause in contracts aside, we all truly believe in what we do, and we understand that the relationship people have with us is one built on trust. It's very easily eroded, so people stay quiet.
Except when things are reaching crisis point and they feel like no one is listening. The only thing that will make a healthcare worker leak to the media, is if they are scared their patients are going to die from preventable systemic problems and that no one is listening.
After a flurry of leaks hit the media in Vic last year, things changed suddenly. As a state we became more transparent, and the message of healthcare workers were heard even in the pressers. And once heard and responded to, the leaks stopped.
Again, going back to my previous comments on listening to the people out in the field, with eyes directly on the problem - these are the ones at the epicentre of it all, who truly know what is going on. There is no spin. There is cold, hard reality.
Healthcare workers are a finite resource. The system may well 'cope' in the end, but the cost may well result in too many leaving the system. Maybe even before. There are already shortages. We might get through covid, but we may not make it back to usual care.
And culturally, state governments across the board pride themselves on running public health departments on the smell of an oily rag. It shouldn't be this way. Cost cutting in health is not to be congratulated, it is a failure to keep up with the population, and the times.
We can't do this any more. We cannot continue this culture of how do we throughput more patients with less staff to care for them. We need an end-to-end approach starting in the community with healthy work environments, more GPs, and ending with how we approach illness recovery
Because right now we have double hits of excessive covid cases in NSW colliding with that extreme cost cutting culture and something is going to give. Healthcare workers intrinsically know this when their own burnout starts to get out of control. I hope everyone is listening.
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