INTRODUCTION:

The COVID-19 pandemic is increasing, so the challenges of health care professionals are also increasing day by day. The statistics are showing that approximately 6,00,000 people have lost their lives, and 9,00,000 people have recovered (Worldometers, 2020). This pandemic is creating some serious challenges for the health care industry and professionals. The systems and sub-systems of the health care industry are affected because of the increased rate of this pandemic. The supply chain of the health care industry has been severely affected, and the motivation of health care professionals is a big challenge for the governments (Iyengar, et al., 2020). The organizational factors can help in motivating the healthcare employees, but before that, one needs to understand the challenges of healthcare employees (Afolabi, et al., 2018). Technology 4.0 can also provide a solution for healthcare employees. In this paper, the discussion will revolve around the challenges of healthcare employees and how emotional intelligence can help medical leaders in dealing with this situation of COVID-19 pandemic.

During COVID-19 education sector has adopted technology very well and switched to conference mode (Ayedee and Kumar, 2020). Television as a medium is also trying to create a positive atmosphere (Ayedee and Manocha, 2020).

Challenges of healthcare professionals:

Initially, it is challenging for healthcare professionals to provide better treatment to COVID-19 patients. It is challenging to arrange ventilators, oxygen cylinders, PPE kits, medical staff, ICU rooms, and other facilities for the increased number of patients (Campbell, 2020). Daily new cases are coming for COVID-19 patients. The shortage of medical components while treating the patients is a significant challenge (Jain, et al., 2020). Both developed and developing countries are facing a shortage of medical kits and doctors. Healthcare professionals are putting their lives at stake to protect the patients, but the situation is uncontrollable in many countries (Iyengar and El-Nahas, 2020). The initial step in COVID-19 treatment is the screening of the patients. The detection of patients is possible in fewer numbers. Still, if a country is facing community spread, it will be difficult for doctors and healthcare professionals to screen out the entire population as the resources are limited in nature. The scenario inside the emergency room is terrible (Morley, et al., 2020). One patient is on the ventilator in the ICU room, while more than ten patients are waiting for a ventilator. The doctors and nurses are under a dilemma to whom they provide medical attention. There was pandemic before COVID-19 also, but this pandemic is taking toll of doctors and nurses (Kumar and Ayedee, 2021). Healthcare sector can also move towards technology adoption (Omiunu, et al., 2021; Kumar and Ayedee, 2021) i.e., artificial intelligence and robotics to deal with this pandemic (Kumar and Kalse, 2021).

The testing of patients is a significant challenge for healthcare professionals. The decision and responsibility of the trial cannot be the sole responsibility of doctors and nurses. The governments and global health agencies need to set the guidelines and provide medical facilities and tools for that. Unfortunately, many countries' governments are not able to set proper guidelines for corona testing because the cases are increasing at a rapid pace. They are in a situation where they do not know whom to test and who not. The testing kits are limited, but there is an unlimited number of patients for tests. Hospitals are losing out their revenue. It has reported that, on average, hospitals are losing $3000 per COVID-19 patient because of the stay and resource utilization (Grays, 2020). In specific developing and under-developed countries, healthcare professionals also lack the skills to test the patients.

The situation of healthcare professionals is also creating severe threats to the healthcare industry. On the one hand, healthcare professionals need to fulfill their duty while, on the other hand, they need to protect themselves from this pandemic. Internally they are running a fight between their mind and heart. Healthcare professionals also want to stay at home with their families, but they need to perform their duties under these hazardous conditions. The question of ethical consensus arises here that healthcare-care professionals need to perform their task no matter whatever be the condition. Many physicians, doctors, and nurses had not seen such a situation in the past. They do not know how to tackle the emergency as they lack the necessary training in such pandemic situations (Gilroy, 2020). There are issues of malpractices and other unethical approaches. In the medical profession, medical malpractices defined as the medical care received by a patient falling below the level of standard care (Capone, 2020). There are many instances where COVID-19 patients are not getting the usual attention by the medical staff because doctors and nurses need to attend many patients at the same time. It is the ethical duty of doctors or nurses to provide regular care and attention to all the patients, but during the pandemic, rationing of care is visible (Cheney, 2020).

In many cases, doctors are giving priority to a young patient over an older patient. The shortage of ventilators and PPE kits are forcing medical staff to prioritize their treatment (Rai and Roy, 2021). Another unethical approach is giving priority to COVID-19 illness over others. The doctors are holding other illnesses and surgeries for the treatment of COVID-19 (Fernandes, et al., 2021). It is a significant challenge to decompose or mange the solid-waste in the hospitals while treating the patients (Al-Momani, et al., 2019). In many countries, the government is calling retired doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to cure this situation, but the learning curve is a problem for all of them. How will they learn, where they will get trained to handle this situation? The problem with health care professionals is that they need to perform before they appropriately learn things. Many healthcare professionals are in their last year of completing their studies, and their studies got affected.

In the coming months, the hospitals can also face the problems of an increased level of burnouts of healthcare professionals; the motivation level of healthcare professionals is continuously falling out. There are cases where healthcare professionals are not able to save the life of a patient, and they need to face the anger of the family members. It is difficult for them to handle such situations (Howley, 2018). They also need time to relax, but unfortunately, they are not getting that time.

Another challenge for the healthcare industry is the production of the COVID-19 vaccine. Unfortunately, there is no such vaccine of COVID-19 (Kumar, et al., 2020), doctors are trying their level best to come out with medicine, but they are not able to provide an acceptable cure for this disease (Cheney, 2020). The testing of drugs is going on in many countries, but it will take time. There are expectations that many countries will be able to find out the medicine of this disease during this year, but till that time, the situation can go berserk. Another dilemma or ethical issue related to vaccines is that when the vaccine will come out, whom will you cure first. The priority should give to healthcare workers and professionals who are putting their lives in danger to protect the lives of others, or the priority should provide to the patients. This question is up-to-the readers. They can decide who should give priority to COVID-19 medicine.

Picture 1- Problems of healthcare professionals (Changed Pictorial)

Effective leadership and management skills:

A solution for healthcare professionals:

Effective leadership and management skills can help healthcare professionals in dealing with this pandemic situation.

Quick training:

Quick training and simulation videos can help healthcare professionals in dealing with this pandemic situation (Harvard T.H. Chan, 2020). The doctors and trainers are limited in number. They can make their videos of training, and those videos can be provided to the healthcare professionals so that it can help them in treating the patients. The new team members whosoever joining the medical services as healthcare professionals have undergone a training program to deal with emergencies. It will help them in understanding the patient and their family members' expectations and emotions during the pandemic time. Through training, they will be able to identify the expectations of their staff members and patients in terms of services.

An open platform for information sharing:

In this pandemic situation, a social media platform is in need where all doctors can share their experiences of dealing with COVID-19 patients. Information sharing is required, and through social media, it is possible. Healthcare professionals are busy in handle the growing number of patients, so healthcare agencies and government can allot this duty to IT professionals to create social media platforms. They share the gathered information from healthcare professionals on those platforms, and those IT professionals can create a global pool of healthcare professionals based on data from government and healthcare agencies (Aayush, et al., 2020). All the doctors and healthcare professionals can be provided access to those platforms for sharing information (Suhail Y and Srinivasulu, 2018). On that platform, they can communicate their treatment and strategies with the doctors around the world. It is up to the agencies whether they want to give the link of those information-sharing channels to the ordinary public or not.

Think from the perspective of different stakeholders:

In this situation, it is crucial to consider the multidimensional view of the situation. The doctors and healthcare professionals need to think about the government, patients, families, suppliers, and other communities connected with them.

Emotional intelligence:

Goleman (2011) argued about emotional intelligence as a critical component of the leader. In this situation, the doctors need to adopt a leadership approach imbibed with emotional intelligence because emotional intelligence can help in understanding the moving shelf of other individuals. In this pandemic situation, doctors need to see themselves as global leaders, and their effective leadership and management can play a defining role in curing this situation (Dasborough, 2019). The four components of emotional intelligence self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management can play a decisive role in handling the stakeholders at multiple levels (Kerr, 2006). Relationship management is the need for an hour. A better emotional intelligence quotient can help in maintaining the relationship with the patients and their families (FRANKOVSKÝ, et al., 2019).

Communication and technology:

In this pandemic scenario, effective communication is necessary between patients and doctors. Positive leaders always communicate in troublesome times (Baker and Hernandez, 2017). The resources are limited, so it is difficult to provide medical attention to everyone. As mentioned above, it is difficult to provide medical care to all patients; technology can play a decisive role here (Kumar and Ayedee, 2018; Kumar and Pandey, 2018). Doctors can remain in contact with their patients through video calls on smartphones, and they can continuously communicate with them about their health updates (Sindhu and Renee, 2019). This approach will help them in avoiding physical contact with the patients.

Ethical training to healthcare professionals:

Doctors must provide ethical training or mentorship to healthcare professionals. For example, is the healthcare professionals are facing three patients affected with the COVID-19 virus, and they have only two ventilators available with them. What will they do in such a situation? They should train to make quick and effective decisions in such a position so that they can address the challenge accordingly.

It is the situation in which healthcare professionals need to make some tough decisions. They should be ready mentally and physically for making such tough decisions. Leadership will play an important role here. How will the doctors as leaders train them to make such decisions?

Emotional intelligence-based leadership: Possible cure to deal with COVID-19 pandemic:

In the above section, the author has discussed emotional intelligence as a part of the leadership that can help medical professionals. This section will talk about the detail of sensitive information in the direction which can help in dealing with this COVID-19 pandemic.

Self-awareness:

The first component of emotional intelligence is self-awareness. It talks about managing self-confidence and creating a positive impact on others with your behavior (Sood and Kaushal, 2018; Sahu and Khan, 2014). In this situation, it is natural for healthcare professionals who are acting as a leader that they are losing their self-confidence. The doctors who are the situational leaders now are getting millions of news articles, videos, and posts of people losing their lives due to coronavirus (Murray, 2020). Those leaders are also away from their families. They need to balance their emotions. They should not allow their feelings to hijack their brains. Negative emotions can hamper the performance of healthcare professionals and doctors. They should think positively and communicate the same to others (Cameron, et al., 2017). Yoga and meditation can help them to remain positive in such a situation. Emotional intelligence can help doctors and healthcare professionals in creating psychological safety, which is a need in the current scenario.

Self- management:

Medical doctors who are working as leaders are also human beings. The senior leaders also have emotions; they cannot isolate themselves in this pandemic situation; inbuilt frustrations, questions, dilemmas, and agony. The emotional self-control is needed. They indeed have less time of thinking, but they need to think before acting. That action can easily communicate their mental state of mind. They should be informative and, at the same time, optimistic. The world has seen many pandemics before COVID-19, i.e., Plague, SARS, Swine flu, etc., and the medical professionals have encountered them with their mental awareness. They need to remain optimistic in today's scenario as well, and their actions should be based on optimistic thinking. The doctors need to manage the treatment with fewer resources. Due to a shortage of ventilators and other equipment, they are facing situations in which they need to sacrifice one life for saving others, but they should not panic because it is the need of an hour; otherwise, there will be loss of more lives. Medical professionals should keep trying for a vaccine with a positive mindset because vaccines can help in controlling this pandemic at a global level. Yes, it is the test of their patience and skill, but they can handle such situations.

Motivation and empathy:

Motivation and empathy are also a key component of emotionally intelligent leaders. In this pandemic time, the medical leaders and doctors are facing the problems of less motivation. They can motivate themselves by adopting flexibility in their behavior. In the current scenario, no-one knows the exact cure of COVID-19 in the form of a vaccine. Medical leaders need to be flexible in their approach while testing the vaccine. They should not feel demotivated if one vaccine is not working. They should keep trying on other options. There can be chances that they are not able to save a life even after continuous effort. Those leaders need to understand every human body is different. Probably they can save another one by practicing the same skills and remain optimistic in their approach.

Medical professionals and leaders need to become empathetic in this situation. They need to handle patients, their family members, and government expectations. It is the time that requires deep care and attention (Cornner, 2020). There will be situations when they cannot admit a patient because of a scarcity of resources. Still, they can always provide better consultation to that patient using the video call option on smartphones (Baker and Hernandez, 2017). It will show their empathetic behavior during this situation. They should not allow negative emotions and thinking to affect their behavior and approaches. There is indeed a scarcity of resources, but healthcare professionals need to learn with a smaller number of resources. For example, if medical meds are not available, then doctors can communicate the necessary medicine, treatment, and isolation to patient's family members over the phone so that they can look after him or her carefully. So, it can say that the scarcity of resources and medical staff should not affect their medical skills and advice. Medical leaders need to be transparent and ethical during this time (Caldwell and Anderson, 2017).

Social skills:

At this stage, the social skills of medical professionals will also be check. They are playing their parts as leaders; Leaders should have excellent social and relationship-building skills. Communication and transparency are critical components of social skills. As medical leaders, they should not hamper their connection with any department, i.e., supply chain, government, patients, families, waste solution providers, peer colleagues, and family members, etc. The medical leaders need to face both sides of the coin. They need to communicate about the death of a family member and the recovery (Manpreet, 2021). Relationship building is a must during this time.

CONCLUSION:

Based on the above discussion, it can conclude that medical doctors and healthcare professionals are the leaders under these situations. They are continuously facing different types of challenges like shortage of equipment, medical staff, treatment, training, testing, and other hassles. Still, they cannot lose their mental health and motivation during this situation. They can develop themselves on components of emotional intelligence, and it will help them in reducing their frustrations and dilemmas. The atrocities and surrounding environment should not affect their behavior. They need to work on their mental health and components of emotional intelligence that can help them in improving their mental health, understanding others, and improving relationship building.

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Received on 02.03.2021 Modified on 06.04.2021

Asian Journal of Management. 2021;12(4):353-358.

DOI: 10.52711/2321-5763.2021.00053