Nurses and other caregivers at Abrazo Health hospitals can take a respite from the challenges of patient care during the coronavirus pandemic with calming meditation videos on tablets donated by the Sufi Psychology Association.

The 18 tablets are loaded with stress relieving videos of varying lengths that include breathing and meditation exercises.

The ‘Caring for Our Caregivers’ initiative aims at assisting healthcare workers decrease stress, and to assist them with their very important and, oftentimes emotionally heavy jobs. The program is completely donation based and volunteer-run, according to SPA.

Tablets were delivered to Abrazo Arizona Heart Hospital by Dr. Kim Amjadi and Phoenix Vice Mayor Betty Guardado. Accepting on behalf of Abrazo Health were Chief Executive Officer Brian Elisco, Chief Nursing Officer Sue Rainey, Abrazo Arizona Heart Hospital President Phil Fitzgerald and other hospital staff.

“We thank SPA and Dr. Amjadi for such a generous and much-needed gift to honor our Abrazo health care workers,” Ms. Rainey stated. “We are most grateful to you and the non-profit organizations that are coordinating this effort to benefit staff at all of the Abrazo hospitals in the Phoenix area in this unprecedented time in health care.”

Even prior to the novel coronavirus pandemic, hospitals were trying to create ways to decrease staff stress and burnout. When Sufi Psychology President Dr. Saloumeh Bozorgzadeh saw what was happening with the COVID crisis, she knew the frontline heroes would have an unimaginable amount of stress.

The ‘Caring for Our Caregivers’ initiative was conceived just over two months ago and has already donated stress-relieving tablets to more than 120 hospitals in 20 states and the United Kingdom.

The Sufi Psychology Association is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization that focuses on utilizing the principles of Sufism in Psychology. SPA has partnered with the M.T.O. Tamarkoz Association to bring the initiative to hospitals around the nation.