Being called “hero” doesn’t always help

EVERYBODY loves a hero, whether it’s Cathy Freeman winning the 400 metres at the 2000 Olympics or the people rescuing flood victims from Lismore rooftops in their tinnies.

Perhaps the archetypal image of the modern hero is that of the firefighters rushing into the World Trade Center towers immediately before they collapsed on 9/11, climbing against the tide of evacuating office workers.

It’s impossible not to be moved by the stories of the 343 who died and the many more who suffered ongoing trauma and health effects.

But what does that label “hero” actually mean, and what might be the consequences of applying it?

Over the past 2 years of the COVID pandemic, the word has been widely applied to health care workers in recognition of their courage and devotion to duty under sometimes appalling circumstances.

Not all have welcomed it.

British psychology researchers writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics say the hero label has been a poisoned chalice for many health workers in their country.

“There was initial appreciation from many frontline workers in their being labelled as heroes, yet over time, the shine from this particular label wore off,” they argue.

Many ended up feeling “betrayed, let down or otherwise short-changed by the hero label”.

One of the problems with a focus on individual heroism – however deserved – is that it helps to obscure larger structural issues that may be anything but heroic.

Images of rooftop rescues tend to be more engaging than detailed analysis of Australia’s apparently inadequate capacity to respond to increasingly frequent disasters such as bushfires and floods. Or, for that matter, to plan and implement a vaccine rollout.

When we laud individuals, we also make it harder for them to protest the conditions in which they are forced to work — in the case of COVID-19, the understaffed hospitals, lack of support for GPs, difficulty of accessing personal protective equipment, or abuse from members of the public.

Health workers are heroes, after all. Surely, they’re not going to make a fuss about small stuff like face masks or a bit of weaponised coughing.

In the UK, these researchers write, appreciative gestures such as the awarding of medals and the Clap for the Heroes initiative came to be seen by many health workers as “disingenuous”.

This was particularly the case when the appreciation did not lead to real action to improve working conditions or, worse, when it was “coupled with blatant disregard of public health advice”.

As the BBC put it: “Some health workers have said they would rather people stay at home and wear a mask than clap for them.”

Overall, these researchers write, the use of the hero label during the pandemic has been harmful, but that need not be the case.

“Heroes can inspire and provide comfort and security in times of distress, and in the pandemic context, their incredible work can give us hope and assurance of a barrier between us and unlimited tragedy,” they write.

In recognising the heroic status of frontline workers, though, we must enter into a “hero contract”, they argue, where we as a society are bound to do what we can to help rather than hinder their work.

That seems almost the opposite of what often happens, where the designation of some people as heroes tends to absolve the rest of us of responsibility.

In the case of those firefighters on 9/11, historian Rebecca Solnit has written about how the hero label obscured the contribution of many who did not fit the archetype.

“The US media were intent on making the event far more like the movies, and in doing so the truth and the richness of what ordinary New Yorkers had achieved on that terrible day were lost,” she writes in her book, A paradise built in hell: the extraordinary communities that arise in disaster.

“Those who rescued others included unathletic gay men, older women executives, school principals, Hasidic Jews in distinctly unheroic outfits, a gang of accountants carrying a paralyzed coworker down 69 flights of stairs, young men who stepped up while police were overwhelmed, homeless people, nurses, and chauffeurs.”

The firefighters too did not always welcome being called heroes, she writes.

“They were victims of terrorism, but also of an uncoordinated, unprepared and ill-equipped system. They viewed their own role with ambivalence and were uncomfortable with how it was mythologized.”

Jane McCredie is a Sydney-based health and science writer.

The statements or opinions expressed in this article reflect the views of the authors and do not represent the official policy of the AMA, the MJA or InSight+ unless so stated.