Creative outlets designed to bring relief from stress for embattled health care workers
Jan. 19—Few professions have suffered as much as health care workers. Few employees have sacrificed so much during 22 months of unrelenting crisis and pandemic.
In response, some hospitals are steering employees toward creative outlets as a way to help them disconnect — if only for a few minutes — from stress, anxiety and work.
Dignity Health Bakersfield has sought creative ways to help support employees during these unprecedented times. During November and December, Mercy and Mercy Southwest hospital staff from all departments were invited to participate in a project called "Behind the Mask" offered by the hospital's Art and Spirituality Center.
"Behind the Mask" is an employee-focused Art for Healing workshop that took place at each of Bakersfield's Mercy campuses. Staff decorated masks as a way of expressing how they feel behind the masks they wear at work.
"We wanted to give people an opportunity to let go, to give themselves permission to be creatively free," said Sara Moore, supervisor of Mercy's Art and Spirituality Center.
Moore helped conceive of the project, which she hoped would allow stressed and overworked employees to disconnect for a few minutes and allow them to enjoy the benefits of creative thought and action.
"It was an opportunity for them to inwardly reflect and outwardly express themselves through art and creativity," Moore said.
Hospitals and care centers have seen a spike in health care worker burnout during the course of the long COVID-19 pandemic. Providing resources for employees has been a priority for many hospital administrators and leaders in an effort to help ease some of the stress and challenges care teams have faced.
Last year, for example, Adventist Hospital Bakersfield hired an artist to design a wall mural across the street from the hospital. Then hospital employees were invited to grab paint brushes and paint to fill in the lines of the mural, a work of public art they would see each time they went to work.
A similar idea was at work at the two Mercy facilities.
The Art for Healing program encouraged staff to stop in to express their feelings as caregivers during the pandemic by decorating masks. They had paint, sequins, glue, colored feathers and markers to work with.
Argelia Diaz from the hospital's Community Health Initiative program said the project allowed her to detach from work-related activities for a few minutes. It also let her connect with her inner child.
At Mercy Southwest, lab tech Yolanda Ahumada created a Wonder Woman-themed mask, a powerful reminder of the courage health care workers have shown and the aching losses they've suffered during the pandemic.
Ahumada was not available for an interview Tuesday, but Moore said the mask was created in tribute to a fellow co-worker who died recently, leaving a hole in the spirit of the clinical lab team.
Many employees came to the project saying they have no artistic talent, no skill, no vision. But then, like Ahumada, they created something moving and beautiful.
Felicia Boyd, a community benefit reporting coordinator with Dignity Health, used paint, sequins and colored feathers to create her mask, which has a purple butterfly at its center.
"The butterfly symbolizes transition and hope," Boyd said. "My hope is that, in the end, everything will be OK.
"My hope is that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel."
It's a light almost everyone is watching for.
Steven Mayer can be reached at 661-395-7353. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter: @semayerTBC.
