{"id":294,"date":"2020-06-09T08:40:17","date_gmt":"2020-06-09T08:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/covid-19\/?p=294"},"modified":"2020-06-09T08:40:17","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T08:40:17","slug":"why-praising-healthcare-workers-as-heroic-is-not-the-best-way-to-support-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/covid-19\/2020\/06\/09\/why-praising-healthcare-workers-as-heroic-is-not-the-best-way-to-support-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Why praising healthcare workers as \u2018heroic\u2019 is not the best way to support them"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Caitr\u00edona Cox.<\/p>\n

\u201cShow me a hero and I\u2019ll write you a tragedy\u201d \u2013 F. Scott Fitzgerald<\/strong><\/p>\n

In recent weeks praise for \u2018Healthcare Heroes\u2019 has been plentiful in the media, with The Mirror even launching a campaign for all healthcare workers to receive a medal for their work. The weekly \u2018Clap for Carers\u2019 in the UK became a focal point, providing an opportunity for the public to visibly demonstrate their support for \u2018NHS heroes\u2019.<\/p>\n

Increasingly, healthcare workers themselves have voiced discomfort at being labelled heroic. Few chose to enter healthcare professions solely out of a selfless desire to help others, and now the heroism narrative being thrust upon them sits uneasily.<\/p>\n

In the COVID-19 pandemic, the risks to healthcare workers are appreciably greater than those encountered in normal practice. In addition to risk of contracting the infection, other costs include physical and mental exhaustion, and considerable emotional pain. We might thus argue that although some personal risk is inherent in working in healthcare, these risks are so amplified currently that descriptions of heroism are justified. The widespread use of militaristic language in the coverage of the pandemic has further fostered the image of frontline staff acting heroically in the \u2018battle\u2019 against the virus.<\/p>\n

It is thus understandable that the language of heroism has been invoked to praise healthcare workers for their actions. Yet such language can have potentially negative consequences.<\/p>\n

The question of what is expected of healthcare workers in a pandemic \u2013 in particular with regard to what level of personal risk they should shoulder \u2013 is a complex one. Hollow dependence upon the narrative of healthcare workers as \u2018heroes\u2019 oversimplifies the issue, providing a potentially damaging and morally vacuous evaluation of an important topic.<\/p>\n

Healthcare workers have a clear and limited duty to treat during the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be grounded in a broad social contract and is strongly associated with certain reciprocal duties that society has towards healthcare workers. In my forthcoming paper, entitled \u201c\u2018Healthcare Heroes\u2019: problems with media focus on heroism from healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic\u201d, I argue that the heroism narrative can be damaging. It emphasises ideas about self-sacrifice but does not adequately recognise the importance of reciprocity, or that there are limits to the levels of personal risk that we can expect healthcare workers to shoulder. It stifles meaningful, and much needed, discussion about the obligations healthcare workers have to work, and through its implication that all healthcare workers have to be heroic, it can have negative psychological effects on workers themselves.<\/p>\n

Recognising the difficult and incredibly valuable work performed by healthcare workers during the current COVID-19 pandemic is an important part of society\u2019s response to it. We should, however, strive to do this without invoking the language of heroism.<\/p>\n

If you are reading this now as someone who does not work in healthcare, you might ask: how, if not by praising healthcare workers as heroes or clapping them every Thursday, can I show support? What can I do to meaningfully help those who are putting themselves at personal risk to care for the sick during this pandemic?<\/p>\n

Consider how you can facilitate a move away from focusing on stories on individual heroism, towards a narrative which more strongly ties the duty of healthcare workers to treat to society\u2019s reciprocal obligations. You can fulfil these obligations in a number of ways:<\/p>\n