#Colours4Frontliners - Unless we are there, none of us will ever know ...

“ we put on our masks and come to work every day because we don’t have the luxury of working from home in our pajamas, but the apathy and ennui that’s taken hold of society just makes our job feel thankless” (” A Parallel Pandemic Hits Health Care Workers – Trauma and Exhaustion – New York Times 8 Feb 2021) As posted and commented on by Julie Kliger linkedin.com/in/julie-kliger-94994a13 whose posts are always well worth the read.

 …. And I sit up straight at my desk where I have being comfortably working remotely for the almost a year now and I feel it. The shame of yet another a blind spot on my part. It’s the realisation that I actually have no idea of what our frontliners are enduring. I am indeed guilty of being part of that pyjama crew with a leaning towards armchair commentary on how our frontliners are feeling. To think that my proxy of having a medical device company could somehow take me closer to that coal face of their emotions is horribly superficial and on closer analysis possibly insulting.

The fact is that unless we are there, none of us will ever know. That’s what frontliners spare all of us. They spare the likes of me the pain of experiencing and knowing what COVID really looks like.

While they do the brutal heavy lifting, leaving their families and their homes every day to attend to gravely ill patients, literally breathing life into the dying, I get to sit safely at my desk. Suffice to say I can only imagine yet will never truly know the unrelenting exhaustion, angst, burn out or lack of appreciation that is synonymous with healthcare workers globally right now. 

The toll of working under these circumstances is one thing. The moral injury of having to do it without the recognition they deserve is another. Yet, this is where we are. During the first wave frontliners felt like we had their backs. There was cheering from windows and applause on city streets. But the second wave is proving very different. Instead, doctors and nurses now have to endure the unvarnished ugliness of our pandemic fatigue. Their cries for help and “fresh legs” are falling on seemingly deaf ears.

We are hearing but not listening to them. COVID thrives in this confusion, encouraging inertia and indulging bad behaviour by otherwise good people. We need to shake off our weary second wave shackles that are weighing us down. Our frontline heroes are in distress and deserve more from each of us who get to sit safely at our desks …..

Feeling helpless is a cop out. Helplessness only adds to our collective fatigue and certainly doesn’t help our frontliners in any way. It’s just another arrow in that COVID quiver that the virus uses to keep us down.

Come people of South Africa. Our frontliners are our people. They deserve our respect, humility and gratitude. And these are easily gifted while costing us nothing but our compassion. This is what #Colours4Frontliners is about. It’s a massive shout-out of colour, love and appreciation from children across South Africa to every brave frontliner in every hospital right now. The creation of art by children and the gifting thereof to our frontliners is so pure and kind a gesture that it makes every person involved in this project feel like they are doing something positive. And the latter is what is key to all of our mental health in surviving the trauma of COVID-19. It’s the act of doing as opposed to not doing i.e. feeling helpless, that needs to prevail. Ultimately, I believe it’s the small acts of kindness that will keep us emotionally tethered during this crisis … and human after all. Please support #Colours4Frontliners by signing up for receiving art if you are a hospital or by providing art if you are a school, or by simply following our hashtag #Colours4Frontliners.

Positive actions speak louder than any words. ?? ???? ??