The Role of Social Workers in Health System during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Social workers in health institutions in Republic of North Macedonia are included by giving of social protection services to individuals - patients hospitalized in health institutions or come for hospital treatments. They are part of multi-disciplinary teams, their role is seen upon their professional work in the area of prevention, giving of social interventions and social services to patients and their families, interventions in times of crisis, social support and enabling of patients for good social. Social workers as health coworkers were also struck during the pandemic in their area of expert work as a result of worsened epidemiologic state in the country, the measures and recommendations for protection from Covid -19. The empirical research was done in August 2021 yеаr, with the participants of 33 social workers working in secondary and tertiary health protection. The goal of this research is to gain information on the situation of social workers working in the health system, during the Covid -19 pandemic. A part of the research was to acknowledge the consequences of the Covid 19 pandemic’s influence on the expert work of social workers in our health system.Methods and techniques of the research: A quantitative method was used in the research, and a survey questionnaire was used to study the condition and professional work of social workers in the system. The obtained results have shown that 51.55 of the surveyed individuals face problems to realize their everyday work obligations. A total of 60.6% of the participants have problems in their cooperation with institutions, citizen associations and humanitarian organizations. As for the professional help and support given by social workers, a total of 25 participants or 75.8% percent have problem in giving this kind of social service to patients and their families.

Keywords

• social workers
• health system
• patients
• Covid -19
• social services

References

1. Banks S. & all. (2020), Ethical challenges for social workers during Covid-19: A global perspective, International Federation of Social Workers, Rheinfelden, Switzerland.
2. Donevska, М. (2014). Theoretical basis of social works. Faculty of Philosophy, Skopje.
3. UN Women (2020). Influence of Covid-19 on women and man in Republic of North Macedonia. Publication UN Women in North Macedonia, June, 2020 year.
4. Ilievski, V. (2013). Prejudices for people with mental disorders and their inclusion within the labor market. Doctorate thesis, Faculty of Philosophy, Skopje.
5. Sharic, N, Dudic, A. & Shadic A. (2018). Social work in health, A collection of papers from a conference, kept on 28.02.2018, Faculty of Political sciences, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo.
6. McCoy (2020). What exactly is the government’s coronavirus strategy? London, Queen Mary University of London.
7. https://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/2020/pr/what-exactly-is-the-governments-coronavirus-strategy.html
8. WHO (2020), Overview of public health and social measures in the context of COVID-19, World Health Organization, Geneva.

9. Law on social protection, Official Newspaper of Republic of North Macedonia “, no. 104/2019.
10. Law on protection of the population from infectious diseases, Official Newspaper of Republic of Macedonia “, no. 37/2016.