Thousands of desperate NHS workers have turned to mental health crisis helplines as they struggle with the horrors of the coronavirus front line.
One charity alone is being contacted by 50 workers a day – some suicidal – after long shifts with dying patients.
And experts fear thousands of medics will be struck down with post-traumatic stress disorder – the same condition that has torn apart soldiers returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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- Nurses are suffering panic attacks and sleepless nights as they fear they’ll be the next to die.
Medics cannot turn to their families for comfort because they are forced to self-isolate in fear of the virus after treating the sick and dying.
NHS bosses are so worried they have set up a taskforce to deal with the inevitable mental health fallout.
One stressed-out nurse, who was already on the verge of burnout before the crisis hit, said she wept every morning on the bus to her London hospital.
She said: “I cry on the way to work and I have panic attacks, wondering if today is the day I will get the virus.
“When you see that so many nurses are passing away, you think, ‘That could be me.’ I’m in my twenties. I’ve treated patients my age with no underlying conditions.
“But I shouldn’t be on a bus thinking, ‘What will they do with my clothes if I pass away? Does my roommate have to pack up my things?’”
Paramedic Charlotte Cope, 23, was found dead at home after a shift in Rhondda, South Wales, this week.
She had posted a message on social media saying she was missing her family, weightlifting and her freedom.
Charlotte’s cause of death remains unclear but colleague Connor Quinn said: “She had carried the weight of the world on her small shoulders in silence for far too long.”
In Italy nurse Daniela Trezzi, 34, who feared she had infected others with the virus, was found dead.
In Britain, at least 43 NHS workers have died from Covid-19.
The Laura Hyde Foundation, which provides support to emergency service workers struggling with mental health problems, has had to refer at least half its 50 callers for urgent help.
Founder Liam Barnes said: “A number of doctors and nurses are self-isolating away from their families in hotels or temporary accommodation – they come home to nothing.
"They can’t share a bed with their partner. When their children are crying, they can’t hug them.”
Liam said the trauma NHS workers are suffering could cause a second crisis in the months to come.
He said: “The peak of the mental health impact be in around six to 18 months. Once it stabilises, they will start to think about the guilt, the grief, have they let people down? That’s when I expect our contacts to increase three to fourfold.
“The NHS will end up with a significant staffing crisis because people will not be able to do the job any more.”
A mental health nurse manning a crisis line for a major London trust said she’d received two referrals for suicidal staff and many more were showing signs of severe anxiety.
The nurse said: “We are getting referrals for NHS staff who are at breaking point. There are understandably huge levels of anxiety. There was one nurse who was suicidal. I’m not surprised.
“We’ve also had a referral for someone who worked in a 999 call centre who was feeling suicidal and overdosed before calling an ambulance.”
Consultant psychiatrist Andrew Molodynski, mental health lead for the British Medical Association, said: “ A lot of people who work in A&E are worried about bringing it home and infecting their families.
“There will be a lot of cases of health and social care workers with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression following this.
“It’s a lot of pressure, it’s a lot of extra work and people aren’t really taking holidays. Rates of burnout are already high. This will only make that worse.”
Labour’s Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, shadow minister for mental health, said: “The Government must ensure that mental health support, including PTSD services, is available now, for all NHS workers and care staff.
“There must be a national mental health package – not a postcode lottery depending on the resources that local trusts and councils can offer.”
NHS England have drafted in top psychologists as part of their taskforce to manage the spiralling mental health crisis among staff.
Its experts have worked on the aftermath of terror attacks and the Ebola outbreak.
NHS England’s national mental health director Claire Murdoch said: “Extra support is both needed and available, including NHS mental health care and support within trusts.
"Plus new text, online and telephone support services which have already been used by thousands of staff in their first week."
