Being forced into an unsustainable and unethical working situation while caring for older people during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden

Abstract

Abstract Bakground: Worldwide, older people were more severely affected during the COVID-19 pandemic than others. In Sweden, those living in residential care facilities had the highest mortality rate, followed by those receiving home care services. The Swedish and international literature on the working environment for auxiliary nurses and nursing aides during the pandemic shows an increase in stress, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress syndromes. Care organisations were badly prepared to prevent the virus from spreading and to protect the staff from stress. In order to be better prepared for possible future pandemics, the health and well-being of the staff, the care of older people and the experiences of the staff both during and after a pandemic are important aspects to take into account. Therefore, this study aims to describe the residential care and home care service staff’s physical and psychosocial working experiences during and after the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden. Methodology: The data was collected through four focus groups interviews with 19 participants and analysed using qualitative content analysis. Results: The result shows that the staff were forced into an unsustainable and unethical working situation by being portrayed as scapegoats by the older people’s relatives and the news media. In addition, they did not feel valued by people in general or by their own managers. The worsening working conditions that the pandemic contributed to resulted in a high degree of stress and risk of burnout, with staff members both wanting to and actually leaving their employment. Not only did the staff become innocent scapegoats in terms of the spread of the virus, after the pandemic they felt forgotten again and left to cope in an even worse situation than before. Conclusions: According to the participants, the pandemic brought them, their working conditions and this part of the caring system to a tipping point, which the government and the media should no longer ignore. The pandemic revealed even more unsustainable and unethical working conditions for the staff in HCR and RCS than before the pandemic, including the vulnerability of the older people in their care.