What is it about?
The paper describes how nurses' labour conditions were affected by 20 years of austerity policies and right-wing government in El Salvador, and how things have changed for them under the "new left" administration of the FMLN since 2009. This government has been very different from the preceding one in its approach to health-care, launching a reform that greatly expanded the population's access to quality care. The study is based on interviews and focus groups with 69 Salvadorean nurses that I did from 2010 to 2013. I show that conditions have improved for nurses in some ways, but serious problems remain in workload intensity due to persistent understaffing, and also under-employment or labour wastage of newly graduating nurses. These reflect a persistent devaluation of care work.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
The study is one of very few to document nurses' labour conditions in Latin America and to analyze how these have changed over time. Nurses are a crucial part of the health-care system in any country, the pillar of the system as many of the Salvadorean nurses noted. But as women, the care work they do is often under-valued. The last decade of the 20th century and first decade of the present century saw left-of-centre governments replace centrist or right-wing administrations in a number of countries across Latin America. But how this wave of change, which came with avowed rejection of neoliberal policies, affected the work conditions of health-care employees and others in the public sector has not been examined by scholars who look at the longer-term viability of the new left governments. This study adds to our understanding of how new left governments value the care work performed by women.
Perspectives
I enjoyed the passionate discussions that ensued in the focus groups with Salvadorean nurses and nursing students. These are people with a vocational love of their work, yet who are also squeezed by persistent understaffing and labour wastage or under-employment as increasing numbers of nurses are graduating from mainly private schools without being absorbed into the workforce. I also had the honour of being able to observe nurses throughout their shifts in several public health-care facilities. The results of that observation can be found here: http://issuu.com/lisakowalchuk/docs/wnd_8feb_issuu The achievements of the FMLN's health-care reform have earned widespread praise from other governments in the region. Given that nurses are a crucial part of this; more explicit measures toward a reasonable workload and to manage private training programs' admission numbers would be a concrete way of recognizing their contributions.
Dr. Lisa M Kowalchuk
University of Guelph
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Nurses’ Labor Conditions, Gender, and the Value of Care Work in Post-Neoliberal El Salvador, Critical Sociology, November 2016, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0896920516675203.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
