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| Source: @ Blend Images / Alamy Stock Photo |
Right now, hundreds of student nurses, student medics and healthcare students
are working on the frontline of the pandemic, enduring emotional exhaustion,
putting their lives at risk, and all for free.
Winter has brought the worst wave
of the pandemic. Chris Whitty has said that there are currently more than 30,000
people in hospitals with the virus in England, in comparison to around 18,000
people during last April’s peak. The NHS is close to, if not already at, its
breaking point. This means that extraordinary measures are now having to be
taken in an attempt to cope with the influx of patients.
A university healthcare
student, who wished to remain anonymous, has spoken of her struggle as she
awaits the start of her hospital placement: “As much as I love placement and
find it rewarding, I feel extremely nervous starting placement again during this
next wave.”
Healthcare students on placement are usually expected to complete a
37.5-hour week of unpaid hospital work over a number of weeks and despite fears
over the current state of the pandemic, this student shares that, “at the end of
the day we have a certain amount of hours we have to complete that must be done
to qualify”.
The tough reality is that most students have no choice but to
accept these terms and push their own fears and concerns to the side as the
alternative option of leaving a course they worked so hard to get onto is hardly
realistic nor helpful. And with this course come their university
responsibilities as well: “Along with placement, managing a dissertation along
with a few other assignments, its hard, and its also hard to find time to look
after myself and my own health”.
Another student who also requested anonymity
shared some thoughts about their upcoming hospital placement: “As a nursing
student in the situation with the pandemic, I feel constantly worried,
unprepared and vulnerable. Especially with our placements, I feel we do not get
enough support from the university with what we are about to deal with, which
suddenly makes me feel incompetent and scared.”
‘Worried’, ‘Vulnerable’
‘Scared’. These are the by products of a governments failings to emotionally
support those who will go on to become the foundations of the NHS, actually,
those who already ARE becoming the foundation of the NHS.
It is imperative that
ministers and universities alike agree on providing these students with the
maximum support, including a national paid-placement scheme and a newly revised
and functional mental health support package so that no healthcare student has
to feel that they are defined by the words; ‘Worried’, ‘Vulnerable’, and
‘Scared’.
To the government, carry on treating healthcare students like this,
and you will lose them.
These students will find other markets and locations
where they feel their work is valued and they will move there. Over the last two
decades, the loss of healthcare workers to these establishments elsewhere has
further aggravated the conditions for those remaining workers and their
respective workload.
It is a vicious cycle that requires the protection and
safeguarding of healthcare students to stop it.
Thank you for reading!
Aman
