Surgeon General’s Advisory Stresses Addressing Health Worker Burnout

According to a May 23 press release, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a Surgeon General’s Advisory emphasizing the critical need to address the health worker burnout crisis across the country. “Health workers, including physicians, nurses, community and public health workers, nurse aides, among others, have long faced systemic challenges in the health care system even before the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to crisis levels of burnout,” states the release. “The pandemic further exacerbated burnout for health workers, with many risking and sacrificing their own lives in the service of others while responding to a public health crisis. Promoting the mental health and well-being of our nation’s frontline health workers is a priority for the Biden-Harris Administration and a core objective of President Biden’s national mental health strategy, within his Unity Agenda.”

That said, “‘The Surgeon General’s Advisory Addressing Health Worker Burnout’ lays out recommendations that the whole-of-society can take to address the factors underpinning burnout, improve health worker well-being, and strengthen the nation’s public health infrastructure.”

The recommendations include:

• Changing workplace culture to empower workers and responding to their needs
• Eliminating punitive policies for workers that seek mental health and substance use disorder care
• Protecting the health, safety, and well-being of workers, including providing living wages, paid leave, and evaluating working hours
• Reducing administrative burdens
• Prioritizing social connections and community
• Prioritize social connection and community as a core value of the healthcare system.
• Ingesting in public health and public health workforce

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra was quoted in the release saying that “At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and time and time again since, we’ve turned to our health workers to keep us safe, to comfort us, and to help us heal. We owe all health workers—from doctors to hospital custodial staff—an enormous debt. And as we can clearly see and hear throughout this Surgeon General’s Advisory, they’re telling us what our gratitude needs to look like: real support and systemic change that allows them to continue serving to the best of their abilities. I’m grateful to Surgeon General Murthy for amplifying their voices today. As the Secretary of Health and Human Services, I am working across the department and the U.S. government at-large to use available authorities and resources to provide direct help to alleviate this crisis.”