UWindsor alumna Jane McArthur is part of a multinational collaboration to address infection, death, overwork, and stress of health-care workers worldwide in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
UWindsor researchers are part of a multinational group calling for major changes to address infection, death, overwork, and stress of health-care workers in the wake of COVID-19.
UWindsor occupational and environmental researchers Margaret Keith and James Brophy; alumna Jane McArthur (PhD 2021), toxic campaigns co-ordinator for the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment; and Ontario Council of Hospital Unions president Michael Hurley represented Canada alongside team members from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
“Refusal to accept the scientifically established airborne nature of transmission of the virus, failure to provide needed protections, hundreds of thousands of preventable infections and over 20,000 deaths from COVID-19 plague the global health-care workforce,” says a statement released to the media Saturday.
The researchers developed a collaborative strategy to address these failings, and suggested several measures, including higher staffing levels to prevent exhaustion, involving workers in decision-making, and helping them overcome barriers in exercising agency over their own protection.