SuperNurse? Troubling the Hero Discourse in COVID Times

Abstract

Since March 2020, throughout the world people have been paying tribute to health care workers for their commitment in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Wuhan they cheer in the night, in Italy they sing from balconies, in Canada they bang pots, and in the United Kingdom they clap for carers. Within the milieu of tangled popular media discourse, heroism has emerged strongly and consistently to describe health care workers, and in particular, nurses. In early May, a powerful contribution to this discourse arrived at the Southampton Hospital, donated by the famous street artist, Banksy. The framed artwork, entitled 'game changer' depicts a young boy kneeling on the floor playing with a brand-new superhero doll. In the background, a waste bin holds two well-known but now discarded superheroes, Batman and Spiderman. The boy's attention is on his new toy, SuperNurse. She is clad in a traditional nursing outfit, including a knee length nursing dress, sensible shoes, a nursing cap and apron. In addition, SuperNurse wears a white theatrical mask, surgical mask, and cape. The painting is black and white, with the exception of The Red Cross, painted on the bib of SuperNurse's apron. This painting is described as "surprisingly earnest" and generous tribute to the workers of the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS), somewhat of an anomaly to Banksy's usual style of sharp social critique and political commentary (Goldstein, 2020). The painting was accompanied with a note from the artist that reads, "Thanks for all you are doing, I hope this brightens the place up a bit, even if it's only black and white" (Goldstein, 2020). Banksy has given form to a new discursive figuration of the nurse. SuperNurse has great timing, she has arrived in the early months of the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife, named by the World Health Organization in honour of the 200 th year since the birth of Florence Nightingale. While contemporary, SuperNurse is modest, brave,

Essentially invisible: risk and personal support workers in the time of COVID‐19

“…As discussed in further detail below, we maintain that ancillary healthcare worker invisibility is deeply tied to larger structural forces that shape the very meaning of who counts in calculations of risk, and whose labour is essential for the system but is so unseen as to not even be factored into these calculations. Indeed, we echo Einboden’s (2020) assertion that ‘public responses to COVID‐19 are reproducing neoliberal rationales about what bodies matter’ and that ‘[t]he virus shows the limits of biomedicine and the fragility of the for‐profit orientation of healthcare systems’. (4).…”

“…Invisibility as we are construing it here speaks to the ways in which PSWs are positioned as workers whose risk in terms of disease transmission is less worthy of consideration and collective protection from undue risk. While doctors, nurses, and first responders are generally lauded as heros (Einboden 2020) and these professionals working conditions are used as the basis for deciding on proper infection control procedures, such as access to adequate personal professional equipment, there was only fleeting public attention paid to PSWs. Given what we have observed during the COVID‐19 pandemic, PSW invisibility in this sense is noticeable and important to take note of in a few ways.…”

“…However, we argue that the level of PSW invisibility is not only professionally different, but indeed, critical to the maintenance of PSWs as an underpaid, under‐supported and potentially exploited labour group. Einboden (2020) notes that these dynamics are tied to labour market needs that pre‐date the COVID‐19 crisis: ‘The imposition of a business model on national healthcare services mean that they are now run “lean,” with limited human resources, lack of adequate space, inadequate laboratory services, limited personal protective equipment, and outstanding equipment orders that have been ignored for months or even years’. (4).…”

Vivências de luto e saúde mental da enfermagem na pandemia da COVID-19: o que nos diz a literatura?

“…Desde então, em todo o mundo, enfermeiros e técnicos de enfermagem são homenageados pelo trabalho e compromisso na prestação de cuidados. No entanto, essa vivência tem sido permeada por uma gama de experiências que geram medo, insegurança, perdas e sofrimento 1 .…”

De Desprestigiadas a Heroínas: a COVID-19 e o ano que seria Nursing Now

“…In this context, health professionals received a lot of attention from the media and the public. Instead of having a year of celebrations and planned awareness, in 2020, a virus unexpectedly made nursing visible and the responses ranged from applause and references to the heroic work of nurses 1 to violence against people in uniform in public transportation and lack of protective equipment to work. The crisis generated by COVID-19 has been described as a "magnifying lens", as it exposes the problems of the neoliberal logic (competition and profit) applied to health, such as the cracks in the Brazilian hybrid healthcare system, fragmented between public and private institutions that do not work together, lack of public investments to serve the entire population, and precarious working conditions for health professionals.…”