Transfers of healthcare workers due to the COVID-19 crisis and its impacts

Abstract: During the coronavirus crisis, healthcare workers are exposed to a large amount of work in high-risk workplaces in very unfavorable conditions. The aim of this seminar paper is to find out what psychological effects the coronavirus crisis has on these healthcare workers and also what are the reasons and procedures for moving workers to other positions. Whether it’s transfers between departments within an organization, or transfers between organizations to other cities or regions. To achieve the aim of the research and answer the research questions, data from the existing questionnaires of Suryavanshi et al. (2020) and Lasalvia et al. (2020) are processed and analyzed and our own questionnaire survey is created, which describes the reasons and procedures for relocating workers in times of crisis. The received questionnaires are compared and analyzed. They show that the symptoms of moderate to severe depression and severe anxiety are most common in healthcare professionals who are in direct contact with infected COVID-19 patients and are also more common in women. The questionnaire itself describes that the most common reasons for relocating workers are necessary assistance with vaccinations or with testing, assistance in special wards for patients with COVID-19, but also due to the lack of staff due to COVID-19 infection. Hospitals use various procedures to deal with this crisis; these most often include transfers of workers to work from home, recruitment of new part-time workers and contractors, bans on taking holidays for healthcare staff and mandatory overtime, assistance from students, part-time workers and volunteers, as well as repurposing hospital beds and reorganization of operations.