Taken for granted: normalizing nurses' work in hospitals

Abstract

The aim of this article is to add to the research surrounding nurses' work in hospitals. Throughout history, nurses have faced adverse working conditions, an aspect of their work that remains remarkably unchanged today. Prevailing historical ideologies and sociopolitical conditions influences the context of nurses' work in contemporary hospitals. This research revealed how ruling patriarchal power and nurses' altruistic ways normalize the conditions in hospitals as nurses' work. Moving discourses further add to the work of nurses in hospitals. For example, cost containment strategies, overcapacity and short staffing have resulted in practices to accommodate these problems. While contemporary hospitals may look different, clearly, inside, little has changed since the early days; hospital issues have clearly become an ordinary part of nurses' work. This article discusses how the conditions in hospitals have become an ordinary part of nurses' work. The research in this article emphasizes how prevailing ideologies and institutional discourses make invisible and taken-for-granted, how this normalizing of nurses' work contributes to sustaining the hospital's power.

Dimensions of Precariousness in an Emerging Sector of Self‐Employment: A Study of Self‐Employed Nurses

“…Nurses lack a clear description of their work that differentiates it from medicine or mothering, which prevents employers and society from valuing nursing work or defining nursing as professional in conventional terms (Bolton, ; Daiski, ; England and Folbre, ; Nelson and Gordon, ; Rutty, ). Traditional beliefs about nursing as women's work persist and patriarchal ruling continues to confine most nurses to traditional hospital‐based roles (Urban, ).…”

“…I did not necessarily seek to speak to only female self‐employed nurses and one male did volunteer to participate. About 94 per cent of nurses in Canada are female (Canadian Institute for Health Information, ) and gender continues to play an active role in the work experiences of nurses (Urban, ). Interestingly, the one male nurse in this study had very similar experiences of precariousness to his female colleagues and thus his perspectives are included.…”

A hermeneutic literature review to conceptualise altruism as a value in nursing

“…In practice, altruism might turn into other‐centred rather than other‐focused care, when nurses sacrifice more than is appropriate or healthy for them and the recipients of care. Altruism that encourages self‐sacrifice in nursing is depicted as a discourse that maintains power structures in hospitals, dictates nurses’ work and prioritises certain disciplines as superior to nursing .…”

Narratives, memorable cases and metaphors of night nursing: findings from an interpretative phenomenological study

“…; Powell ) may also be developed. Although the expanded autonomy and responsibility seems to be a fundamental factor that assures hospital care sustainability, indicating that prevailing historical ideologies continue to exert control and power over nurses and their work (Urban ), night work internationally is still ‘unrewarded’ (Brown and Brooks , 339) and ‘invisible’ (Nilsson et al. ; Powell ).…”