Today’s Care Emergency reveals tomorrow’s System of Care.
At the time of writing, the WHO reports that COVID19 has infected more than 1 million people in over 180 countries with over 70,000 deaths confirmed. The numbers are rising. Healthcare systems are on their knees, with medical staff battling to save lives whilst risking their own. And according to CNN, 1 in 4 people on the planet are sheltering-in-place, allowed out only for basic essentials.
We are facing a Care Emergency.
The early signs that our Systems of Care — healthcare, eldercare and social care — were vulnerable and fragile had been there; the fissures and cracks were forming steadily over the years, resulting in an over-stretched and under-resourced Care infrastructure that lacked the resilience to confront such a shock as this.
For a long time we’ve ignored the alarm bells rung by care professionals, patients and their communities who had already reached breaking point and begun pushing back — going on strike, instigating a revolt, simply refusing to continue bearing the stress of their everyday experience of Care.
We knew our Systems of Care were not fit for the 21st Century.
But, there was not yet the so-called ‘burning platform’ for change.
COVID19 has put our Systems of Care at stake. Which in turn also threatens our financial, economic and education systems; showing that when we’re not able to deliver Care, when the System crumbles and puts hundreds of thousands of lives at risk, the only thing we can do–all of us– is to stop and stay at home.
Care is no longer guaranteed for anyone. The basic level of security and certainty is gone; thousands of families are facing death & dying without real end-of-life choices, care professionals work in precarious conditions whilst being forced to take the worst decisions they could ever imagine, meanwhile the most vulnerable on the social ladder are being hardest hit.
Nevertheless, even as the Systems fall under attack, this global pandemic has placed Care in a central position in our society and revealed its many shades. On one hand we’ve seen the cruelest pictures of suffering, loneliness and distrust. But on the other, we’ve been uplifted to see how Community has thrived, with bold and compassionate acts of solidarity to avoid leaving anyone behind.
We are listening and learning as this story unfolds at different scales and places. It is impossible to draw any conclusions now, but we wanted to share some observations and some hope. For what most people see as a moment of regret, we see as an opportunity; as a Call to Action to Transform our experience of Care.
Since we now face a million burning platforms every day.
It’s time to redesign Care.
A time to build Caring habits.
Self-isolation has forced us to stop and reflect upon our personal habits and notice all the little (and big) rituals upon which we rely each day to feel grounded and well. Self-care practices have become essential lifelines in the daily turbulence of this evolving pandemic, as well as the first step to Care for those around us.
Quarantine puts life in slow motion and sharper focus. We can live more consciously and understand whom and what it is we really Care about; whether it’s nurturing our closest relationships, creating a healthy home environment for the family or taking the 21-day challenge to develop personal habits that not only help us survive COVID19, but equip us with essential self-care and caregiving skills for life.
The question is: how might we turn this moment into an opportunity to learn how to feel balanced, to strive for a more meaningful quality of life for ourselves and our loved ones?
Care demands Collective action.
The Butterfly Effect once again shows us that individual actions such as staying at home or wearing a mask are key to protect our collective health condition. Nevertheless, this critical situation has also taught us that we can no longer afford to remain passive and rely solely on our Systems of Care to look after us; we need to actively participate if we are to collectively survive.
That’s why we’re proud to see that, while care professionals provide their time and expertise to cover the basic needs of survival, a large number of bottom-up communities based on volunteering have flourished to deliver the essential human qualities of Care that the System cannot provide. Not only offering practical help to the most vulnerable but also providing the solidarity, gratitude and companionship necessary to live through this situation.
Without any doubt, Care is a shared responsibility.
But, when all this is over, how can we make Co-responsibility of Care part of our new normal? How might we integrate these collective experiences into the System to keep caring for each other?
Embedding resilience to cope and Care.
A consistent image we see today is of adhoc improvisation and adaptation of spaces, protocols and practices by thousands of care professionals working in inhumane conditions, navigating uncharted waters to cope with the sheer volume of demand as this virus spreads.
Images that reveal how our Systems of Care were not resilient enough to successfully respond to a breakdown like this. Probably because in a bid to achieve optimised and cost-efficient processes, we removed all the so-called ‘redundancies’ that may have helped us now to face the onslaught in a more responsive, flexible and agile way.
However, as well as survive, we must simultaneously strive to learn fast from this context to be ready for the future.
New collaborative leadership strategies will be crucial to joining forces and building the trust required to establish a collective and ethical intelligence. With this we can make the right choices and the bold structural changes –such as the fast digital transformation we are experiencing in healthcare right now– needed to overcome the future challenges of Care.
So, thinking ahead, how might we define the foundations of a resilient System that is capable of responding with consistent quality of Care under any circumstances? How might we start nurturing these collaborative leadership skills amongst Care Organisations?
Taboos must be overcome.
End-of-life, anxiety, depression and loneliness are taboos that have always surrounded us. But in light of today’s context of isolation, where people are dying alone and families are grieving apart, they become even harder topics to discuss.
This pandemic awakens an urgency to share our vulnerabilities and fears, not only with our loved ones but also with our care professionals. And yet, both sides — professionals and citizens — are ill-equipped and unprepared for these important conversations. We’ve always lacked the vocabulary, confidence and skills to address these subjects and share our expectations and wishes. And now, we also lack the physical space and comfort.
In this climate emerges the importance of breaking down the stigma around such topics and learning how to speak candidly to one another about our deep-rooted fears; an opportunity to put our emotional and mental health at the centre of our personal wellbeing and find comfort.
And this brings us to a last question: how might we use this crisis to encourage an open attitude towards these hard topics? How might we facilitate compassionate conversations that help us to cope and heal some of our deepest wounds?
The Day After.
Right now it’s difficult to set an end date for this Crisis. Probably because we’ll never get to feel that it’s over, but we’ll slowly realise that, while progressively going back out to the streets, a new normal will have emerged.
As we pointed out at the beginning, far from seeing this situation with regret, — and still very concerned for the suffering of thousands of families— we would like to reframe the COVID19 outbreak as a wake up call to turn adversity into an opportunity to consciously rethink our values, lifestyles and organisations to embed Care at the very heart of our Society.
Months back we launched a Call to Action to Redesign Care (Medium, PDF). Now we have our burning platform. We see this Care Emergency as the final nudge to step out and proactively join forces to bring Care back into the gears of our cultures.
Not only to build up the resilience needed to be ready for future Emergencies, but also to define the conditions in which we want to provide Care and to be Cared for in our everyday lives.
It’s time to Transform our World of Care.
Are you ready to join us?
