COVID-19, healthcare workers and future mental health issues
In the Spanish Flu of 1918–1919, Dorothy Stopford, a 3rd year medical student at Trinity College Dublin looked after 30 patients on the landing of the Meath Hospital in Dublin. She described her experience as ‘not unlike an evil dream’. Professor Peter Medawar, the father of transplantation, described a virus as ‘a piece of bad news wrapped up in a protein’. COVID-19 is very bad news wrapped up in its own specific protein. We are in extraordinary times which call for extraordinary measures. The QJM has highlighted over recent years articles on the epidemiology, management and prognosis of viral infections in the community including influenza and the Zika viruses. We welcome two reviews in this issue related to COVID-19 virus infection. The first deals with Mental Health by Prof. Cullen and colleagues. The second highlights lessons learnt on the handling by the Japanese authorities of the quarantined cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, in Yokahama. Healthcare workers care for their patients in the most challenging of times aware of the heightened risk of person-to-person spread. They naturally are at significant risk of developing significant psychological symptoms and in the longer-term burn-out depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. In this context, we welcome the article on Mental Health in the COVID-19 epidemic by Professor Cullen and colleagues outlining the problem and highlighting the measures needed to be taken by healthcare organizations globally to support health care workers. Limiting spread of COVID-19 from cruise ships—lessons learnt from Japan