In partnership, INMO and Cornmarket launch a brand new and bespoke initiative, ‘Let’s Talk About It’, a mental health collective for INMO members.
Let’s Talk About It aims to get nurses and midwives talking about mental health, create a community of support and equip members with practical advice, enabling them to take action to protect their mental health when the need arises.
A welcome message from Karen McGowan - INMO President
I am delighted to be able to welcome my colleagues in nursing and midwifery to this new mental health initiative. The Executive council and I feel very strongly that access to mental health resources is vital to our friends and colleagues across all areas of healthcare at the moment, and we encourage all INMO members to avail of the initiative's resources.
The Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on mental health around the globe, but nurses and midwives, at the forefront of the frontline throughout this crisis, have taken on an enormous burden. As we move out of the worst days of the pandemic, we will need to work together, and talk through our experiences, to heal from the stress and trauma we have lived through.
Some of us will be starting to realise how deeply we have been affected by the pressures of keeping ourselves, our families and our patients safe for the past year. Others among us are struggling with the exhausting burden of work, combined with home-schooling and the stresses of life in lockdown. And many of us will be dealing with grief, trauma, and sadness at the toll taken on our patients, our lives and our communities by this virus.
None of these are burdens we can or should bear alone. Now more than ever we need to abandon the stigma around mental health and talk to each other about our experiences. I hope we can all find the right support to meet our needs, and I hope that this programme of resources will provide a much-needed space for nurses and midwives to tell our stories. We have come through this pandemic by working together, with kindness and solidarity, and I believe that is how we will all move forward.