Healthcare provider bereavement, part II
Employees need nurturing and psychosocial support to care for their patients wholly. Focusing on patient emotions only and pushing employees to the side is a leadership failure. There must be a holistic recognition of the human side of the work with responsiveness to employee needs. Whenever employees display complicated emotions or experience negative patient experiences, leadership must aid the employee in returning to baseline by instilling in them a sense of achievement and warmer self-talk — early intervention is key. It is important that employees not feel isolated or unable to discuss their grief lest their pain and suffering pile up over time and eventually lead to breakdown. The development of grief support policies is extremely important and can be as simple as alternating assignments. If staff are educated on bereavement theory and supported by management and peers, they may be able to complete the tasks of mourning.
Many healthcare facilities do not have grief interventions but providing of end-of-life education is critical, as it is also not often provided in nursing or medical curricula in university. Orientation should include education on death, dying, grief, and bereavement for use by the employees for both them and their patients, and there should be regular retraining. Recognition of anticipatory grief should be included as well as the knowledge that bereavement does not necessarily have to involve a death.
While many people are not exactly sure how to support the grieving, organizations must move past this societal issue by providing interventions for their employees, as these are extremely crucial to both maintain the workforce and improve employee health. Organizations must proactively be involved in helping employees identify their bereavement triggers and provide support once these are recognized and occur to avoid escalation. Those affected by issues like bereavement overload can have a difficult time working through their losses and the mourning processes for each loss. They find that there is limited time to manage their feelings, as grief piles up with inadequate mourning periods. Organizational acknowledgment is considered a resilience factor for employees, highlighting the importance of addressing bereavement-related concerns.
