Occupational team safety in ECT practice and COVID-19

Dear Editor,

We would like to share ideas on the publication “Occupational team safety in ECT practice during the COVID-19 pandemic”. Araujo and Quites noted that “We believe this is a safe and effective way to reduce the risk of contamination from COVID-19 during the ECT procedure”. ¹ We agree that anesthesiologists should try to mitigate COVID-19 spread during ECT procedures. However, we would like to extend the suggestions. Safety must be offered to all patients, not only to the one attending to the procedure, and there should be no left risk to the others after the procedure. Complex safety tools used during a procedure must be either easily processed or single-use. Waste management is an important topic to be discussed. It is necessary to prepare for waste disposal and destruction.

Finally, the health center administrator should try best to promote safety of workers. ² During the COVID-19, the safety of both patients and healthcare workers should come first. It is necessary to plan for both preventive and corrective actions for any unexpected COVID-19-related incident. COVID-19 outbreak period is a very tough time, and good policies from a good administrator can encourage and reinforce the healthcare workers.

References

• ¹
  Araujo RF, Quites LO. Occupational team safety in ECT practice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rev Bras Anestesiol. 2020;70:687-8.
• ²
  Saithong C. COVID-19 outbreak, primary health care center and vision of local administrator of primary health care center. Case Study Case Rep. 2020;10:17-8.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  30 June 2021
• Date of issue
  May-Jun 2021

History

• Received
  24 Dec 2020
• Accepted
  6 Feb 2021