Women health workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic: invisibility, overload, and ethical dilemmasIntroduction The COVID-19 pandemic has made the relationship between health, modes of production, and social organization unequivocally evident. In Brazil, the healthcare workforce is predominantly female and often overlooked.
Objectives To analyze the working conditions faced by women health workers on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19 and to identify the psychosocial aspects they experienced during the pandemic.
Methods Qualitative research using semi-structured interviews. Categories of analysis were developed, and emerging themes were grouped.
Results Health workers described how the pre-existing precarious nature of healthcare work was exacerbated; they devised individual strategies to protect themselves and their families, with limitations on their own self-care. They remained responsible for domestic tasks and expanded care for family members, relatives, and neighbors. They experienced professional burnout, stigma for being frontline professionals, ethical conflicts, restricted activities, and recurring deaths. Paradoxically, protective measures stemmed from the workers’ strong ethical and emotional bond with caregiving.
Conclusion An intensification of work was evident, with a greater overlap of domestic and professional responsibilities falling on women, without social support and decent working conditions, as factors generating work-related psychosocial distress.
Keywords:
Frontline Workers; Health Personnel; Women, Working; COVID-19; Psychology; Occupational Health; Ethical Dilemmas