Family of doctor who died of suicide during coronavirus pandemic pushes for new law

During the worst days of the coronavirus pandemic in New York, in the early spring of 2020, Dr Lorna Breen described the scenes at the Manhattan hospital where she worked as being “like Armageddon.”

The emergency department at the New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital was operating at three times its capacity due to the influx of Covid patients. When she wasn’t at the hospital, she was often directing her staff over the phone. When she contracted Covid herself, and could barely move, she continued to help from afar. But even as the pandemic took a significant personal toll on her own health, her primary focus was on her patients.

“As a caregiver, one of the hardest parts about COVID is that you’re used to helping people, and when you can’t do that, it is really hard on the psyche. She was absolutely experiencing all of that very clearly,” said J Corey Feist, Dr Breen’s brother-in-law.

Dr Breen died by suicide on April 26, 2020, following an 11-day stay at a psychiatric hospital. She left no note, and experts say suicide is rarely attributable to one factor alone. But since her death, her family has been determined to help other health professionals who are at risk of suffering from burnout and stress.

Mr Feist co-founded the Dr Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation along with his wife, Lorna’s sister, Jennifer Breen Feist. The organisation is behind a new law that aims to fill the institutional gaps which make it difficult for healthcare workers to receive mental health support, and it has bipartisan support.

“People are shocked that there are all these barriers to getting mental health help. For you and I, we can go and go to a therapist without any recourse to our livelihoods,” Mr Feist told The Independent. The same is not true for medical professionals, he added.

The profession throws up barriers, some very real and some imagined, according to Mr Feist. Things such as medical licence applications asking questions about an applicant’s mental health history, which could, in theory, impact their chances of employment, encourage a culture of silence in the medical profession.

“It defies logic,” he added. “Even if you don’t know a healthcare worker, everyone’s going to be a patient. And so you want your healthcare workforce to be of sound mind and body so they can take care of you when you become a patient. So not only do they deserve it just individually, but everyone should care about this issue because someday a loved one is going to be a patient.”