The term “betrayal trauma” technically refers to the trauma caused when you experience betrayal in your relationship. This betrayal damages the trust, safety, and security of the bond you have with your partner. But in terms of COVID and its effect on mental health, it is being used when the people or institutions on which you depend for survival significantly violate your trust or well-being. For example, not getting enough PPE suits or adequate protection from the administration of the hospital where you have worked all your life.
Healthcare workers are prime victims of betrayal trauma during this pandemic phase. The lack of proper safety gear, unreasonably long working hours, lack of safety/protection from the angry crowds and public are some of the factors that lead to the feelings of betrayal trauma.
As Manju Shastri, a doctor from Bihar said, “I am happy, doing my job, saving lives. But I am equally scared about infecting myself and my family. Have you any idea how difficult it is for us healthcare workers to just see patients entering and then leaving either the hospital or life? While treating them, we aren’t even sure if we are going to be 100% safe from the virus.”
The authorities and management believe they have no answers to such questions and this has further made healthcare professionals feel even more vulnerable. “My colleague died last week. And not a single doctor did anything to save her. Apart from that, there is no compensation for her family after her death. Is this even fair? There are around 300 staff members who have been infected by COVID so far...it is a huge number...they are just asked to quarantine themselves in an adjacent hotel and then report back to duty once they are better. Some of them die in this process and their bodies are sent to their houses...it all seems like a horror movie to me. All this is so transactional and devoid of any feelings...we are simply following SOPs all the time and have forgotten what humanity is.
Moreover, you never know which patient’s family might just go crazy at you and hit you or defame you. Our job is to save lives and people don’t let a single chance go by when someone loses their battle to the virus. We are not Gods, people need to understand that. But above that, the government and our hospitals need to give us protection from angry patients and their attendants, which we rarely get. Once out of the hospital gates we are on our own...inside the hospital premises the guards intervene to stop a scuffle, but last week a man threatened a female doctor that he will see to her (meaning cause damage to her life and safety) as soon as she steps out of the hospital gates. He was like a madman and we were all scared of the doctor’s safety. We asked the hospital to send a guard with her till she reached home, but the hospital could not spare anyone and the poor lady had to call her husband to pick her up, she was so terrified.
But is that how this hospital should have behaved? All she needed was a guard to escort her till her home which is 20 minutes away from the hospital but they could not spare anyone...this makes we lose trust and faith in this hospital and wonder if our lives matter to them?
How are we to trust people? The institutions? The government to save our lives in serious conditions??
We all are risking our own life, our family’s lives while doing our work and we don’t get the respect and compensation that our family ideally deserves. Before my colleague’s death, I didn’t think about all this as much but her death just emboldened all these questions and doubts. These thoughts are not letting me sleep and I have started getting angry by the day. I cannot stay calm. It is almost like, I cannot trust this system and my profession anymore… Is it wrong? I feel they--my hospital, this profession of medical practitioners, the government--has cheated me, forsaken me and betrayed me,” says Manju.