COVID-19 AND THE CHALLENGES OF MEDICAL SOCIAL WORK PRACTITIONERS: IMPLICATIONS FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Abstract
The Covid-19 Pandemic has affected the world in all spheres of life, including the wellbeing of families, individuals, organizations and communities globally.
Interestingly, the place of Social Workers as frontline actors in fighting this Pandemic cannot be over emphasized. The aim of this study therefore was to examine and identify the challenges experienced by Medical Social Workers during this Pandemic in the course of their involvement and interventions. This study adopted a qualitative design utilizing 25 in-dept interviews (IDIs) with Medical Social Workers who are staffs of the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital Calabar and the University of Calabar teaching hospital, Calabar respectively. The IDIs were analyzed in themes. Findings from the study revealed that some of the Medical Social Workers in the selected hospitals were involved to an extent in the Covid-19 interventions and they encountered several challenges which had affected their levels of intervention. The study recommends the need for the Federal Government and Hospital Management to address the challenges and needs of Medical Social Work Practitioners in other to improve service delivery to all clients in need of care.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Bristish society of Gerontology. “BSG guidelines for ethical research with human participants, Retrieved from: Https://www.britishgerontology.org/about-bsg/bsg-ethical-guidelines.
Chinyere Edith Onalu, Ngozi Eucharia Churkwu and Uzoma Okoye (2020) Covid-19 response and social work Education in Nigeria: Matters arising, Social Work Education. The International Journal, (Online) Http://www.tandonline.com/Ioi/Cswe20 Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. Published 27 Sep, 2020.
Cui, K. (2020) Tasks and competences of frontline social workers in fighting the COVID-19 Pandemic: stories from Chengdu, China. The International Association of schools of social work. Retrieved from http://www.iassw-qiets.org/covid-19.
Economic Commission for Latin Amercia and the Caribbean [ECLAC] (2020). The social challenge in times of Covid-19. Retrieved from Http://www.cepal.org/en/publications/45544.social-challenge-times-Covid-19.
IFSW (2020). Nigeria Covid-19: call for sober reflections and calmer. The International Federation of Social Workers. Retrieved from Http://www.IFSW.org/Nigeria -Covid-19 -call-forsober-reflections-and-calmness.
Limon, E. (2018) “Challenges Medical Social Workers face that lead to Burnout” electronic Theses, projects, and dissertations. 687 retrieved from Http://www.Scholarworks.lib-Csusb. Edu/etd/687.
Malik, A. & Sarfraz, S. (2014) Social work practitioner in Health Care with special reference to Pakistan. Retrieved from http://www.Jespk.net
Nigeria Association of Social Workers (2016). Welcome to NASWO. Retrieved from Http://www.nasow.org.
Nigeria Centre for Diseases Control (NCDC) (2020). COVID-19. Retrived from Http://www.covid-19.ncdc.gov.ng.
Okoye, U. O. (2019). Health Care Social Work in Nigeria. In Winneth, R. Furman, R., Epps, D. & Lamphear, G. (Eds). Health Care Social Work. A Global perspective (pp.149.161). New York: Oxford University Press.
Wiles, R., Crow, G., Health, S. and Charles, V (2008). The Management of Confidentiality and Anonymity in Social Research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. (115).
Zhang,J. Wu, W., Zhao, X, & Zhang, W. (2020). Recommended Psychological Crisis Intervention response to the 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak in China. A model of West China Hospital. Precision Clinical Medicine, 3(1), 3-8.
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2021 Ikwen Stephen Agba, Juliana Jerome Adie, Ifeyinwa Roseline Obeki
ISSN: 3027-0510 (Online)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.