If COVID-19 was a war, our health workers would have been in the firing line. They are the ones bravely protecting us as South African citizens against a lethal but invisible enemy.

Healthcare professionals, already stretched to the limits under normal circumstances, now also have to focus all their time, energy and expertise on COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. This is also taking its toll on their mental health. Statistics regarding mental health already show that the medical profession is suffering most, yet they now need to attend even more to us, the public. That is why we have to show we #Care4OurCarers with this year's #CrazySocks4Docs (CS4D) day, which is celebrated today on Friday, 29 May.

Professor Jimmy Volmink, Dean of Stellenbosch University's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences said: “We recognise that the mental strain on health professionals working in South Africa can be immense and that depression and mental fatigue are particularly high among professionals who dedicate their lives to the treatment of others. This is even more pronounced now in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen the majority of our health professionals and volunteers at the coalface of managing and treating the rising number of South Africans affected by it."

Each year, CS4D is organised by the Ithemba Foundation, a non-profit with two public benefit goals, namely to raise awareness around depression and other related diseases such as anxiety, as clinical, biological diseases, and to support research. Ithemba means hope in isiXhosa – the message being that if depression is the illness of despair, we need to hang on to hope. In the words of Ithemba Director Dr Marita van Schalkwyk: “As health workers we must undertake to serve the sick and needy, but we must also look out for one another, help one another, inspire one another and seek help when we ourselves cannot keep up the demanding pace. There is always hope – the meaning of ithemba."

It is clear: Now, more than ever, healthcare professionals need our support and we need to show it in a visual way. We therefore request that the public wear funky mismatched socks on Friday 29 May to show we care for our carers. Included are everyone in the health professions, also academic and administrative staff on our medical campuses, as well as our future carers: our medical students. We know they are also suffering immensely under anxiety and fears, and despite this, still volunteering to work as extras in the fight against COVID-19. 

For medicine and health sciences students, there is a little bonus: Ithemba wants them to post their sock selfies on www.facebook.com/IthembaFoundation1 and encourage family and friends to like their sock selfies. The student with the most likes on each campus will get a cash prize of R1 000. So come on, all the moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and dozens and dozens of friends out there, like those creative sock selfies on 29 May! And wear your own creative, crazy combination to show you #Care4OurCarers on #CrazySocks4Docs Day!

For more information on the campaign, contact Prof Lizette Rabe at ithembafoundation@mweb.co.za or LRABE@sun.ac.za