8% of health workers have thought about suicide during the pandemic: "It is difficult for them to ask for help because they fear showing themselves vulnerable"

• Eleven lives I X-ray of suicide in Spain: more deaths, greater risk among young people and a growing but insufficient effort in prevention

• Eleven lives II Words, gestures and listening against suicide: "To help well you have to touch the pain"

• Eleven lives III Protect your life against suicidal ideation: "Seek help before anguish blocks you, you are not alone"

Some people are capable of

at work one night after having attempted suicide.

Incapable of not showing up, such is usually the degree of responsibility and commitment, and at the same time, with tremendous fear that someone will know, say or comment.

And the worst thing is that this happens: there is always someone who knows, says and comments.

When you think that all of the above happens in a healthcare environment... one of those rooms with people in different colored scrubs who

and sometimes, why deny it, they face death, something worsens inside.

There are people who are also born with the need to be

precisely,

.

"In a professional culture in which, from the beginning, everything is competitiveness and great efforts, in which illness, pain, death, stress and anxiety coexist," says psychologist Pedro Martín-

, specialized in suicide prevention among health workers, "it should not surprise us that suicidal ideation occurs."

For

, a nurse who agrees to tell her story "because she can talk about it" -she only asks for anonymity- life turned upside down in 2019 after certain personal events, then the pandemic arrived and, suddenly, the comecome,

I

.

Recurring thoughts about the idea of

while, apparently, the person is fine because he shows up to work every day.

It's useful, but it's fatal.

Worse when, the next day, she arrives at his job, full of fear, and a colleague approaches her to talk about the matter, read suicide attempt.

"Can you imagine? You arrive and they talk to you about what perhaps you haven't told almost anyone around you, and you realize that he is talking about you..."

Associations and telephone numbers that offer help

drop down

-In the event of an imminent vital emergency, call the emergency telephone number

directly .

-If you have suicidal ideation

- Telephone of Hope: 717.003.717.

- Suicide Prevention Telephone (Barcelona): 900.92.55.55.

-Telephone/Chat ANAR to Help Children and Adolescents 900 20 20 10

- Telephone Against Suicide- La Barandilla Association (Madrid): 911.385.385.

-- RedAIPIS-FAeDS Association

- Papageno 633 169 129 supervivientes@papageno.es

-The Yellow Girl Association

-P81 Social Association

-APSAV.

Association for Suicide Prevention.

Green Hugs.

Asturias.

- AFASIB (Family and Friends Survivors per suïcidi of Les Illes Balears (Balearic Islands)

-AIDATU.

Basque Suicide Association

- APSAS: Association for the Prevention of Suicide and Aid to the Survivor.

(Gerona)

- APSU: Association for the prevention and support affected by suicide (Valencian City)

- ASAM: (Burgos).

- BESARKADA-Hug: Navarre.

- BIZIRAUN: Basque Country

-BIDEGUIN: Basque Country

- After the Suicide: (Barcelona)

- Alaia Foundation (Madrid)

- Metta-Hospice Foundation (Valencia)

- Goizargi: Navarre

- Group Survivors of León.

- There is Exit, Suicide and Duel: (Cantabria)

- Ubuntu (Seville)

- Light in the dark Association (Tenerife)

-Volver a Vivir Association (Tenerife)

The situation was not ideal in 2020 but it is much less so after a pandemic.

In 2021, "more than 50% of Spanish health professionals had already developed stress and anxiety, 26% severe or extremely severe depression and 34% severe or extremely severe stress."

But there is a more terrifying number:

. "

In the interview with this newspaper, Marta remembered two of her colleagues, "two nurses who committed suicide in 2021" .. As if that were not enough, the risk in toilets is also greater than in the general population.

"In the latter it is 40% and, among health professionals, 50," says Martín-Barrajón, psychologist responsible for the

.

When the pandemic began, this professional took over the primary psychological care room that the

set up.

In two months they received 16,000 calls.

"20% were people affected by covid or grieving covid. Of the total number of people who asked for help, only 7% were health professionals. It is known that these people find it particularly difficult to speak, to say what is happening to them, much more if They're having suicidal ideation."

Beatriz Alba Carmona

, a nurse at SUMMA 112, an expert in Emotional Intelligence and a member of the Humanization Commission of this organization, expresses herself in the same words:

What is the reason for such a profound inability to ask for a hand?

Experts say that

. "

"We believe that we are expected to be

and

," says our nurse today at a good time but who, in the middle of the pandemic, wanted to disappear.

She remembers with horror the day after her disaster, and that as soon as she entered the common room at her work, a colleague approached her to whisper in her ear about her situation.

"There is no discretion, and that also terrifies us, the possibility of putting our professionalism and even our mental health at stake. We must remember that suicide is not always associated with a disorder," she points out.

Carmona says that "suicide cannot be seen as something organic because it would be reductionist and a perverse simplification of the phenomenon."

"If there were an emotional salary, if the environment, salary, conditions, personal satisfaction, the number of patients seen per day improved... the person could improve because suicide is multi-causal

because it tends to be associated with that person's personality, their weakness or strength, as if the person who wants to commit suicide were a coward... Verbalizing this in a healthcare environment is a flaw in professionalism".

three years of hell

"Our health professionals have gone through a lot, they have endured as best they can and the stress has become chronic. They have also tried to get ahead on their own, others have developed different types of addictions, look at this fact: addictions have grown to a 16% among toilets in recent years", reveals Martín-Barrajón.

Chronification, sick leave, post-covid syndromes such as fear of infection, feeling more vulnerable than ever, seeing more deaths than ever, prolonged stress over time and a matter that will seem minor but try to put yourself in their shoes: 2020 began with

, points out Martín-Barrajón.

, a specialist in anxiety and stress, has also been highlighting from the beginning, when he affirms: "Think of a doctor who has a day to call 80 people and attend another 80 in person. And that when he leaves the

center

sometimes they even scold him. It's just that we have no idea what they're going through".

Photo courtesy of Psicólogos Princesa 81

Martín-Barrajón points out that the current situation, terrible to be understood, begins to be observed in the "autumn of 2022, when it has been a long time since recognition has been heard but anger" before a sector that has also faced a strike, that of Primary Care, in the last times.

Compared to this year, professionals detect an overwhelming increase in

, that is, wear and tear, which is known as being

.

"There is an increase in the number of consultations by professionals, especially primary care doctors, who are reaching 87% emotional exhaustion," says this professional, using data recently published in the Mental Health Conference of the Madrid College of

, directed by the doctor

.

"This is like being bullied"

Beatriz Carmona compares the situation of a health worker with suicidal ideation to that of a child who suffers from

.

And she explains: "In the end, the only ones capable of detecting something are those who live with you, the only ones capable of detecting the alarm signals that indicate that a person is thinking about it."

"The ideal would be, in the workplace, that I as an employee have the ability to identify the signs as well, that I can sound the alarm discreetly, even though that person has not asked for help, get somehow, being as we are in health centers, that a psychologist can approach, ask...".

In this regard,

, an emergency psychologist and co-director of the National Network for the Prevention of Suicide at Princesa 81 Psychologists, says that "medical professionals are a group that is reluctant to ask for help. They fear losing their license to practice the profession, the stagnation of their career advancement, as well as the stigma that might accompany it within their peers.

"They even use medical services less, which confirms the difficulty of this group in asking for help. It is known that those who care for others often have difficulties of this type."

This professional also maintains that it would be necessary to delve into the reality of healthcare workers in greater depth because their daily circumstances "make it necessary to study stress in this group."

"His role involves approaching the patient in all aspects: social, family and work, focusing his actions on each of the patient's needs, as well as his family, maintaining control of the emotional response and a certain distance that allows him to make objective decisions.

All this, along with having to deal with pathologies on a daily basis.

So with this interest in going deeper, Alcocer herself describes the stressors that a health worker can face: "Excess aversive stimulation, since they constantly face the suffering and death of the patient, as well as pain due to the loss of a loved one suffered by relatives and relatives Very high proportion of patients who must be cared for and pressure in work time

Lack of training in skills to control one's own emotions, in addition to those of patients and their families.

Bureaucratization and individualism in health institutions.

The number of working hours or the type of contract that the professional has Complexity in decision-making Increase in attacks on health professionals in the work environment".

As a solution, this expert proposes "the implementation of training programs and the support of other psychosocial teams, which could provide them with sufficient skills to be able to address these demands", which are truly many and overwhelming.

As many as the 11 lives that are lost every day in Spain due to suicide.

This report is part of the 'Once vidas' project promoted by EL MUNDO for the prevention of suicide and of which Santiago Saiz, Rebeca Yanke, Rafael Álvarez and Yaiza Perera are part.

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