Katie’s advice on advocating for frontline healthcare workers.
Katie recently talked to Michael Sneed, Johnson & Johnson’s Executive Vice President, Global Corporate Affairs and Chief Communication Officer, about how they’re prioritizing public health and frontline healthcare workers amid the pandemic. “At Johnson & Johnson, one of the things that we’re very much invested in is public health,” Sneed said. “Obviously, we’re a for-profit company but we are investing heavily in things like the vaccine for Covid-19, in Ebola vaccines, in Tuberculosis. These things don’t provide a lot of profit for us but we believe strongly in it.”
Katie shared some advice for them to help first responders and healthcare professionals who are on the frontlines of the pandemic and are experiencing mental health issues. “I remember calling a number of hospitals [during the pandemic] and saying, ‘what are you doing for your frontline workers who are really being traumatized?’ Sometimes when you have an initiative like that to make sure that the people you’re serving know about it, but also the community at large — and you could do that by telling stories of how frontline workers have been really affected,” she suggested.
Sneed responded, “we have focused so strongly not just in the last year but frankly for decades on frontline workers because we think they’re the backbone of the healthcare system whether it’s in this country or other countries around the world.”
Watch the video for their exchange on access to healthcare and click here to learn more about Johnson & Johnson’s $50 million commitment to support frontline healthcare workers, both physically and mentally.
