Impact of ongoing conflict on the mental health of healthcare workers in Palestine

Abstract

Letter to the Editor:‎ Palestine, a country afflicted by protracted political instability, has suffered vast crises throughout its ‎history. The recent turmoil between Israel and Palestine that started in May 2021 has aggravated the ‎challenges posed by poverty, the COVID-19 pandemic, political occupation, and a deficient healthcare ‎system. As health care is already considered a stressful field, facing this upscale in events not only puts ‎healthcare workers (HCWs) in physical stress but also affects their psychological capability and mental ‎health.‎

The healthcare system in Palestine already faces shortages in infrastructure and HCWs. This additional ‎psychological pressure will decrease the working efficiency of HCWs. Mental health services in the West ‎Bank and East Jerusalem are based entirely upon community care and are quite limited in terms of the ‎extent of healthcare delivery. The Ministry of Health provides the main services but there are only 13 ‎community mental health clinics. Psychiatric services provided by Ministry of Health include 280 beds in ‎West bank and 39 beds in Gaza. Mental health disorders in Palestine remain underreported and under-‎treated. These services are unable to meet the burden of need, as there is no proper funding and policy. ‎Concurrently, services have suffered through an upsurge in the demand, lack of latest medications and ‎an ineffective management structure.‎

In effect of the ongoing political turmoil and conflict, a majority of Palestinian people, especially HCWs, ‎children and young adults are at great risk of developing some form of psychopathology. Research ‎suggests about a third of the Palestinians are in need of mental health services and more than 40% of ‎them suffer from depression. This is due to the ongoing events of violence specifically bombings in ‎civilian areas which compounds the country's challenges such as poverty and social mobility; more than ‎‎72,000 people have been displaced because of hostilities in the Gaza strip. ‎

The COVID-19 outbreak added to these problems as HCWs suffered from increased fear of death, ‎burnout, depression and moral distress. In addition, increased rate of infection has created a huge work ‎overload among HCWs leading to severe exhaustion and preventing them from meeting their families. ‎‎(Continued…)‎