#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #ARGENTINA #ANARCHISM #LIBRARY #News #Journal #Update - (en) #Argentine, FORA - Organizacion-Obrera #95: LOOKING INTO THE SUNLIGHT: POSSIBLE FUTURES OF NURSING (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 "Keep your face always towards the sunlight, and the shadows will fall behind

you" Walt Whitman [1]---- The first strike of nurses in Argentina was in 1916.
Well, the first of which there is a record. Yes, male nurses, who were the
majority at that time in what we now know as the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires
(CABA). As expected, it did not end well: the strikers were initially displaced
by scabs (medical students well disposed? to look after the interest of the
penitents, I mean, "patients" of that time) to later be effectively replaced by
"nurses" who had received the instruction denied to them by the directors of
Hospitals [2]. ---- The displacement of the strikers was based on the following
way by Dr. Sarmiento Laspiur (then Sec. of Public Assistance) "the purpose of the
distribution is to change the nurses without a diploma, who are only laborers who
lack all knowledge, for nurses received from the municipal school after a course
of nine months" (La Prensa newspaper, 09/16/1916). Although the strikers had
agreed to form a nurses' society, little or nothing is known about the fate of
this initiative [3].

This first division (external to the protagonists) can be said to have marked the
subsequent destiny of the discipline, which has a mirror degree of fragmentation
of the health system. According to the Ministry of Health (2019), out of a total
of 234,527 nurses nationwide, 16.2% are licensed, 51.9% technicians, and 31.9%
nursing assistants. National (24,004) and jurisdictional regulations define the
functions, but, on a day-to-day basis, everyone carries out the same tasks.
Specialties (former residences) are rarely recognized and there are few (or none)
possibilities of paid training, leaving the cost of these at the expense of the
professional.

The protests in the sector returned with a different force and some points in
common with those of 1916 in 2018 when Nursing in the Autonomous City of Buenos
Aires was left out of the Career of health professionals (6035). Faced with the
complicity of unions such as SUTECBA in professional precariousness added to
threats, acts of violence and pressure of all kinds, the professionals decided to
organize themselves in base assemblies of different hospitals to generate common
actions that converged in a massive march on the 21st of November that was the
cover of some newspapers. Parallel to this movement, the "Cecilia Grierson"
Higher School of Nursing, a centenary space for professional training (mixed,
secular and free), He was in a similar fight due to the will of the City
Government and the portfolio led by Acuña to cut curricular training instances
among other issues. The scenario clearly showed the power of the grassroots
organization and the degree of vulnerability of the profession in the educational
and hospital settings.

Nurses from different parts of the country showed solidarity with the situation
in CABA and began with protest actions whose objective was to make visible that
the problems to which the profession was subject had no provincial borders.

On April 18, 2020, the first Nurse in a pandemic died: Silvio Cufré (47 years
old). His death occurred in a context of absolute violation of his status as a
worker and professional. During his work at the Brandsen Medical Institute, he
had cared for COVID patients without being notified of the situation [4]. On June
8 of that same year, Law 27,548 "Silvio Law" was promulgated, the first article
of which refers to:

"Declaration of National Interest. The protection of the life and health of the
personnel of the Argentine health system and of the workers and volunteers who
carry out essential activities and services during the health emergency caused by
the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is declared a priority for the national interest.

Little bread and a lot of circus. Nursing continued to take to the streets with
the same points:

Salaries above the family basket,
Insalubrity for all health workers,
Professional recognition. Linked to inclusion in the professional career and
similar claims in the provinces,
Go to plant of contracted workers.
Pension for the families of workers who died from Covid.
During the pandemic, endless temporary contracts arose under the pretext of the
emergency febrile units (UFU) and the subsequent vaccination campaign. Especially
in the campaign, nursing students were asked to collaborate with these spaces as
a "training activity" but later when the tasks carried out in this field were not
linked to the curricular design, these practices were not accreditable. This
situation in some spaces such as the Cecilia Grierson School generated conflicts
between teachers (who reported that it was not safe to carry out the practices)
and the student body, marking a break that even today has not been able to be
overcome versus the work carried out jointly during the defense of the curriculum
and the School in 2018.

In January 2021, Nursing organizes a sixty-two-day camp in front of the National
Ministry of Health where the need to implement and comply with Law 27,499
(Micaela Law) [5]was added to the aforementioned slogans . There were sticks and
"corridor" meetings: a lot of circus and little bread. The COVID-19 pandemic took
the lives of around 203 nurses (Télam and Perfil 06/07/2021). And, as if that
were not enough, the government of the city of Buenos Aires proposes to pay a
"tribute" in Parque Ameghino to the people who died in the pandemic by placing
more cement and cutting down trees (Tiempo Argentino, 11/07/2022).

Large parentheses were emerging in this story: for the president, nurses are
"health technicians", for Larreta "administratives", for former counselor Alde of
the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the National University of Rosario "vulgar
nurses", for deputy Osuna "figurines that put on clothes" ... And among all that
... came the promise of bread, some circus and a lot of rubber stamp with the
brand new project presented by Yedlin at an event at the Casa Rosada Museum (with
the heads of the great union cadres present) whose objective was to "promote and
develop" Nursing (sounds more like a promotion combo than anything else). It
should be noted that an incorporation of the Ginés management in the health
portfolio was not present at the main table of the event: The director of Nursing
(circus and bread for some).

 From that first step (between meetings and other herbs) months later, the Yedlin
doctor's project had half a sanction (Aurelio, 2022), making it clear that the
profession was top quality electoral meat.

This "new" norm is born from the matrix of an old paradigm: the one that prays,
as former counselor Alde would say, that nurses are vulgar and need instruction.
The profession is also declared to be of national public interest to later form a
National Commission for training and development in Nursing: it seems more like a
distribution of petty cash and a flurry of rubber stamps than the needs demanded
by the professionals.

The ruling by Judge López Vergara (Administrative Litigation Chamber - CABA) in
November (11.04.2022) of this year brought new information to the arena of
claims/mobilizations/activism: the magistrate ruled in favor of the amparo
initiated by Graduates in Nursing in 2018, reminding the Government of the
Autonomous City of Buenos Aires that Nursing belongs to the professional and
non-administrative scale. Celebrated by a sector, the measure once again
fractures the professional group since nurses (tertiary degree / university
undergraduate degree) and assistants who work in Hospitals are at the mercy of
the Career of Nursing Professionals (CAPE), Frankenstein of SUTECBA. A panorama
that makes it difficult for workers to organize.

In an electoral climate, everyone wants a portion of what is theirs; then the
victory is advocated by some, leaving others at the mercy of organizations that
are not representative of the collective demands [6]but have the possibility of
sitting at a salary table.

The nurses spoke again during the conflict with the residents of CABA, making
clear the need for union and collective organization to be able to break
precariousness, as well as the dangerous conditions in which they work. It should
be noted at this point that Nursing also has rented residences and specialties
which are exclusively dedicated. Therefore, the professional is captive of
miserable salaries and exhausting work under the cloak of learning.

A professional sector highly disputed by politics and vernacular trade unionism,
Nursing is in a liminal moment [7]where the possibility of generating
internationalist actions could break with the logic of the mouse wheel.

The COVID-19 pandemic made clear the leading role of Nursing in collective
health, opening a possible cross-border dialogue. A feasible scenario due to the
coincidences between the problems that have arisen in the pampas and other
countries such as Romania, the United States (remember the nurses in Brooklyn
putting on garbage bags due to the lack of camisoles and the TIME magazine cover
of the 100 most influential people of the year [8]), the massive protests in
Canada, Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Greece, Germany; showing that
internationalist organization is possible and that fragmentation remains a threat
to the discipline as a whole.

Another window of opportunity is the need to discuss the role of Nursing in the
increasingly pressing problems of socio-environmental health. Paraphrasing
Carrasco [9]Nursing care for whom? Nursing science for what or who/is it?
Searching for those answers can turn 180 degrees in the ways of seeing (us) and
activating in common.

It will be necessary to think then if the decision will be to continue being
spectators of the circus and the few breadcrumbs or sowers of a show where no one
is left out: neither the professionals, nor the community, nor the environment.

References

Living Earth Agency (2022). Andrés Carrasco: "All knowledge is ideological and
always refers to a political act." Available at:
https://agenciatierraviva.com.ar/andres-carrasco-todo-conocimiento-es-ideologico-y-remite-siempre-a-un-acto-politico/


Aurelio, A. (2022). Medium sanction for the Nursing Promotion Law. Available at:
https://tramaeducativa.ar/media-sancion-para-la-ley-de-promocion-de-enfermeria/

Barbouth, D. (1994). liminality. IDIS. Available at:
https://proyectoidis.org/liminalidad/#:~:text=El%20t%C3%A9rmino%20%E2%80%9Climinal%E2%80%9D%20viene%20del,tiempo%20intermediario%20entre
%20two%20events .

Official bulletin. Law 27,548. Health Personnel Protection Program in the face of
the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. Available at:
https://www.boletinoficial.gob.ar/detalleAviso/primera/230239/20200608

Daily dicen.es (2017). Walt Whitman, the writer who became a nurse. Available at:
https://www.enfermeria21.com/diario-dicen/walt-whitman-el-escritor-que-se-convirtio-en-enfermero-DDIMPORT-052132/


Ministry of Health (2019). Federal Observatory of Human Resources in Health. Data
on labor force. Available at:
https://www.argentina.gob.ar/salud/observatorio/datos/fuerzadetrabajo

Profile (2021). More than 200 nurses and nurses died from Covid-19 in Argentina.
Available at:
https://www.perfil.com/noticias/coronavirus/203-enfermeras-enfermeros-murieron-covid-19-argentina-durante-pandemia.phtml
  Digital Telam (2021). 203 nursing professionals died from coronavirus in the
country. Available at:
https://www.telam.com.ar/notas/202106/556921-murieron-203-profesionales-de-enfermeria-por-coronavirus-en-el-pais.html

[1] Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892) poet and volunteer nurse during the American Civil
War (1861-1865).
[2] For more information on this topic, see: Wainerman, Catalina and Binstock,
Georgina 1995 «2. The feminization of Argentine nursing. In: Words of silence.
Latin American women and their history (259-283), comp. Martha Moscoso. Ecuador:
UNICEF.
National Library. Critical Journal. Editions of September 16 and 17, 1916.
Library of the National University of La Plata. Newspaper La Prensa September 16,
1916.
[3] The historical documents on the case are scattered in different repositories
and that is why much of what is expressed must be taken hypothetically until new
sources emanate from the dark shelves of history.
[4] The cutting of facts/events does not follow a rigorous historical line
because it serves as contextualization for the article.
[5] The so-called "Micaela Law" Establishes mandatory training on gender and
gender violence for all people who work in public office, in the Executive,
Legislative and Judicial branches of the Nation. It takes that name in
commemoration of Micaela García, a 21-year-old girl from Entre Ríos, victim of
femicide at the hands of Sebastián Wagner.
[6] SUTECBA - Single Union of Workers of the State of the City of Buenos Aires.
Its motto is "a strong, united and supportive union" led since 1983 by Amadeo
Genta (who needs no introduction).
[7] The term "liminal" comes from the Latin limes "limit" or "border". It is
defined as a passing state, as a transition from one place to another, as a
threshold situation: something that is no longer and something that is yet to be
(Barabouth, 1994).
[8] Nurse Amy O'Sullivan was on the cover of TIME magazine (10.12.2022) and
placed among the 100 most influential people of the year.
[9] Andrés Carrasco (1946-2014) a doctor with an extensive academic career who
marked a milestone with his research on glyphosate in embryos. "It is a massive
experiment", he defined the transgenic model in Argentina. In one of his writings
(2012), he criticized hegemonic science, an input that is still fully valid
today. Available at:
https://agenciatierraviva.com.ar/andres-carrasco-todo-conocimiento-es-ideologico-y-remite-siempre-a-un-acto-politico/

https://organizacion-obrera.fora.com.ar/2023/01/09/mirar-a-hacia-la-luz-del-sol-futuros-posibles-de-la-enfermeria/
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