Reproductions of vulnerability: BAME overseas qualified nurses in Welsh hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: Vulnerability, COVID-19, pandemic, oppression, intersectionality, BAME, race, nurses, hospitals, Wales, qualitative methods, governance
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 5

Abstract

This paper reports on how COVID-19 and the governmental responses to the pandemic in Wales affect the experiences of groups that faced relatively high levels of suffering, illness, and death, such as people whose lives unfold according to alternative mobilities. The study (‘COVINFORM’) focuses particularly on the job circumstances of BAME overseas qualified nurses as they have been separated from their family whilst working in relatively high-risk jobs in Welsh hospitals. Based on in-depth interviews with nurses from the Caribbean and Philippines, as well as healthcare managers and government officials with responsibility over parts of the pandemic regulation in South Wales, this paper reveals how these nurses have been rendered vulnerable in precarious pandemic circumstances compounded by intersecting processes of oppression, including through race and gender. These reflections provide new insights into how vulnerability is understood, negated, and reproduced in neoliberal state and local policy as well as in the organisation of healthcare in Wales.