Nurses and Their ‘Spirit of the Second Mile’ Service during Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This article was written during the time when most countries in the world,including Thailand, were faced with the Covid-19 pandemic. The main purpose of thisarticle is to propose the ‘Spirit of the Second Mile’ principle, which was implemented andproved to be effcient during the Covid-19 pandemic as a concretely valuable nursing care practice.

Covid-19 is a new emerging, dangerously contagious disease. Not only doesCovid-19 spread easily and quickly, it also is a disease for which there is neither a directcure nor a vaccine. As a result, a large number infections and fatalities have resulted,mounting increasing pressure and challenge on nurses, who are part of the healthcarepersonnel.

Despite the apparent risk to their health, nurses were a vital force against thisdisease, performing their duty courageously, like frontline soldiers, to fght this pandemic with the spirit of the second mile. The ‘Spirit of the Second Mile’ is characterised by (i) serving with willingness, self-sacrifce, and accountability; (ii) spontaneous readiness to perform more than the duty requirements and beyond the predetermined standards, to ensure accomplishment of the mission; and (iii) affection and compassion for other peopleas if for those in one’s own family, in an equal, impartial, and boundless, manner, withoutexpecting anything in return.

Serving with the spirit of the second mile could effectively reduce service recipients’physical and mental health damage and loss of lives. Thus, the benefts and value of thespirit of the second mile were concretely and evidently recognised as contributing enormously to the service recipients, healthcare organisations, healthcare profession, and the nurses themselves, who played an integral part in helping Thailand become successful in handling this crisis more effciently than several other countries. Nurses, therefore, became admired as the ‘white gown warriors’ against this unprecedented disease outbreak.