Physical and Mental Wellness for Healthcare Workers and Seniors: Healing Our Healers and Soothing Our Seniors

What problem would you like to solve?

Our healthcare heroes are still caring for COVID patients, and every other kind of patient in Manhattan, while simultaneously struggling to recover from the trauma and sheer physical and mental exhaustion, from the pandemic. So too, our seniors living in nursing homes, who were fortunate enough to survive the pandemic, still suffer from the immeasurable effects of the extreme loneliness and isolation they experienced.

Why is it important to solve? Why is it relevant for the community?

We need to implement ways to help our healers heal, because they need and deserve it, and so that they can continue to help heal us! We can't afford to lose any more healthcare workers than we've already lost due to illness, burnout or even suicide, as a result of the overwhelming strain of the pandemic. Massage therapy by specially trained therapists helps relieve physical and mental stress, and specifically for seniors, helps fulfill the need for human connection and touch that the lockdowns deprived them of.

What idea do you have to address the problem?

Provide free, or very low cost, onsite chair massage to all healthcare workers and staff at Manhattan hospitals and nursing homes, as well as to the seniors living in those nursing homes, by the NYS licensed and specially trained massage therapists working with the nonprofit organization Tender Touch For All.

Who would that help?

Healthcare workers, from physicians to CNA's (certified nursing assistants), from surgeons to housekeeping staff. (The lower level healthcare jobs are held predominantly by underpaid, overworked people of color, who were in general overwhelmingly disproportionately affected by the pandemic.) Our seniors living in the nursing homes of Manhattan.

What NYC borough would benefit from your idea?

Manhattan