SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) -- On Wednesday, University of California San Francisco officials held a press conference to discuss mental health and the impact of isolation on school-aged children, adults, and seniors due to COVID-19 restrictions.
According to UCSF, recent studies found an increase in depression and suicidal thoughts in children and adults as a result of the pandemic.
“One of the ways our adolescents are experiencing COVID-19 that we know that for some families it’s a stresser, it’s harder, and people are balancing many things,” said Saun-Toy Trotter, a psychotherapist at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.
“But COVID-19 in some families is more of a traumatic event.”
Trotter also works at Oakland’s Youth Uprising/Castlemont school-based health clinic located in East Oakland -- where she says there has been a rise in suiscide attempts since the start of shelter-in-place orders.
“Even currently right now we see some studies showing the prevalence of depression rates have increased by three percent during this COVID time.” said Trotter.
As a result of the pandemic, adolescents have also been impacted through family financial burdens and with the challenges of transitioning to online learning.
“Adolescents who are returning back to school, their first day of high school or their first day of their senior year, COVID-19 has really increased isolation,” said. Trotter.
“Social isolation, that time to connect with their peers, their families are experiencing increased poverty and unemployment.”
In the U.S. people over the age of 65 are at highest risk of dying from COVID-19 -- according to Dr. Louise Aronson, professor of medicine at UCSF says there has been a recent uptick in non-COVID deaths, suicides and starvation.
Dr. Aronson cites the cause to the recent uptick caused by little to no elder expertise in public departments opposed to children and adults, officials judged solely on COVID-19 outcomes, lack of proper health care at senior care facilities and community programs that supported elders ceased with no alternatives offered.
Additionally, officials also spoke about spiritual care as an essential service throughout the pandemic -- citing from Aug. 2019 to Aug. 2020 a demand increase of 37 percent for UCSF’s Spiritual Care Services.
“By the simple act of compassionately listening and being present as another person that’s there,” said Jamie Kimmel, staff chaplain at UCSF Medical Center.
“We enable somebody to speak from the heart if they choose to do so … and in this connection there is healing.”
from KRON4 https://ift.tt/30388p8
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