JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, July 10, 2025

Expert: Stranded cruise workers’ mental health at risk

by

1874 days ago
20200522
Clinical Psychologist Dr Katija Khan

Clinical Psychologist Dr Katija Khan

RISHARD KHAN

As hun­dreds of cruise ship em­ploy­ees anx­ious­ly await re­unions with their fam­i­lies, clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist Dr Kati­ja Khan says there is a sig­nif­i­cant men­tal health threat to them She says there is anx­i­ety build­ing up among the em­ploy­ees strand­ed around the world af­ter coun­tries closed their bor­ders due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Yes­ter­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young fi­nal­ly an­nounced Gov­ern­ment is work­ing on a plan to al­low cruise ship em­ploy­ees and Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies stu­dents a safe re-en­try in­to T&T.

But de­spon­dent and scep­ti­cal crew mem­bers still want to know when they will touch home soil.
Khan said the like­ly im­pact of be­ing strand­ed at sea could in­clude height­ened lev­els of dis­tress, frus­tra­tion, fear, wor­ry, ag­i­ta­tion and de­spair, which are neg­a­tive emo­tion­al states. She said this will af­fect their func­tion­ing and al­so puts them at in­creased risk for men­tal health ill­ness­es like clin­i­cal de­pres­sion and anx­i­ety dis­or­ders.
“Stress can af­fect per­sons psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly, cog­ni­tive­ly, phys­i­cal­ly and so­cial­ly. They may find their sleep, ap­petite, en­er­gy lev­els, mood, mo­ti­va­tion, per­for­mance, in­ter­ac­tions with oth­ers, phys­i­cal health and sub­stance use be­ing im­pact­ed,” Khan said.

“The men­tal health threat to strand­ed cruise ship em­ploy­ees is a sig­nif­i­cant one and has al­so been linked to the death by sui­cide of some em­ploy­ees from oth­er coun­tries around the world. As such, their cop­ing and re­silience is of para­mount im­por­tance.”

Khan ex­plained that un­like in­di­vid­u­als quar­an­tined in lo­cal fa­cil­i­ties, these em­ploy­ees do not have a clear time­line of when their con­fine­ment will end, mak­ing their sit­u­a­tion even more chal­leng­ing.

“I imag­ine many of them feel aban­doned, pun­ished and be­trayed as they strug­gle to un­der­stand why oth­er cit­i­zens are be­ing repa­tri­at­ed and they aren’t. They may find it un­fair and un­jus­ti­fi­able and as such, strug­gle to cope,” she said.
Some of the cruise work­ers’ fam­i­ly mem­bers reached out to Guardian Me­dia in the past week shar­ing their con­cerns for loved ones on the ships.

Khan said fam­i­ly mem­bers who try to ad­vo­cate for their strand­ed loved ones will al­so be af­fect­ed.

For em­ploy­ees, the cur­rent stres­sor is an in­def­i­nite quar­an­tine but they al­so face po­ten­tial job loss and loss of in­come as the cruise ship in­dus­try has been hit hard dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. She rec­om­mend­ed the cruise ship com­pa­nies and the Gov­ern­ment share as much in­for­ma­tion as pos­si­ble on repa­tri­a­tion to mit­i­gate anx­i­ety and stress. 
“This will help them man­age their ex­pec­ta­tions in a healthy way and aid their un­der­stand­ing and cop­ing,” Khan said.

“This com­mu­ni­ca­tion should be dis­pensed in a sen­si­tive and com­pas­sion­ate way that is cog­nizant of both the na­tion­al health and safe­ty con­cerns as well as the cit­i­zens’ need to be repa­tri­at­ed and the neg­a­tive im­pact on their well-be­ing of be­ing in­def­i­nite­ly strand­ed at sea.” (KF)

Stuart YoungCOVID-19Trinidad and TobagoCOVID-19 deathsCruiseHealth


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored