Strategies to humanize the medical treatments and mourning in COVID-19
Intensive Care Units
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has modified many aspects of clinical practice.
Although the COVID-19 crisis is, primarily, a physical health crisis, in
many cases physicians understood the urgency of the mental aspects as
well and tried to find new ways to humanize the patients’
hospitalization. Policies designed to keep patients and medical staff
safe required extreme but necessary measures, including social
distancing. That meant that patients were isolated from their families
until discharge, remaining in a sort of undefined mental space.That
meant that patients were isolated from their families until discharge,
remaining in a sort of undefined mental space. The common question that
brought the patients’ relatives together was: is this really a temporary
separation or a start towards a final departure? The paper shows
strategies to humanize and manage the ICU treatments and mourning during
the COVID-19 pandemic.