“Mummy… I miss you, papa is also not at home. When will I see you both?” That’s what my 7-year-old daughter keeps saying to me. I am a nurse at the civil hospital and my husband is a sub-inspector. My daughter has been left with my parents till the time we are working with COVID patients. It has been six weeks already. She is missing us now,” says Sulata Jain, who is employed with the civil hospital in Lucknow in the isolation ward. Her husband has extended hours of duty during the COVID crisis and has been deployed in the city patrolling team.

 As the pressure of COVID infections and lockdown increases, frontline warriors are being weighed down with extra stress of personal guilt. While taking care of others, they are drowning in the guilt of not being able to do much for their own family.  Besides extended hours of duty, in order to keep the family safe and prevent any kind of infectious spread, they are staying away from their home sometimes for weeks. In other cases, their children have been sent off to parents or relatives’s house since leaving the kids alone at home wasn’t an option. The stress of saving others’ lives at the cost of their own family!

Given the risks, uncertain situations, long hours of work, difficult situations of work and isolation from the family it is but obvious  that they are battling a whole lot of negative emotions.

Along with stress and anxiety, they experience loneliness and the guilt of not being with their loved ones. This  either makes them question their decision to be in this  line or work, figure out whether  it is worth, and in worse cases makes them an emotional mess.

Being the essential workers on the forefront during the pandemic times, they have to always be available. While doing so, their feelings of ignoring the family because of their work lead to self-doubt and self-esteem issues. The feeling of helplessness creeps in them every time they think about how they are missing out the family time, not able to make their children study or help their aging in-laws or parents, and not able to give their full attention to the family.

They feel the pinch of the smallest lost moments—a good grade the daughter received in her online test, the board game in which the toddler defeated a willing grandparent, the blooming of the rose bush which erstwhile she/he had been tending with all their love and attention—and this makes them feel deprived angry, lonely and helpless. 

Due to such negative emotions, the frontline heroes end up struggling with their mental and emotional health. It can either make them a recluse or be irritable and intolerant of their colleagues, patients and everyone else. The stress reflects in the physical symptoms such as loss of appetite and sleep disturbances.

At such times,

1) It is important for them to focus on the positives of their job, remind themselves why they took the job in the first place, feel pride in it and find joy.

2) The family too needs to try and keep  in touch through phone and video calls as much as possible.

3) As a society, we need to take care of their families when  they are not around—extend food deliveries, take care of the medication of old parents, help children  in their studies...after all their services is what is making  life safe for us.