Easier Said Than Done: Acknowledging Intersecting Injustice Towards Healthcare Workers Is Not Enough

The healthcare field has significantly changed in the last half century. Organizations within this service-based field are subject to pressures characteristic of the Capitalocene era, including regulatory oversight, continuous technological advancements, cost-management restrictions, standardisation of procedures to meet quality benchmarks, and the need to provide timely services to meet accessibility demands. As a result, health-related work groups have experienced growing adverse working conditions, evident in increasing levels of burnout rates, declining levels of job and work satisfaction, and increased attrition from this field of work.

Drawing from the experiences of workers from various health-related working groups in hospitals, this presentation will discuss strategies that were identified as a means to resist the devastating implications of the Capitalocene and those suggested to mitigate the impact of the Anthropocene, as illustrated by mass-casualty events treated in hospitals.

Hospital workers identified relational strategies to mitigate the Capitalocene, such as fostering bonding and bridging social capital. The double affiliation of healthcare workers to a specific hospital ward as well as to a specific work group was identified as an effective structural characteristic that enhances both types of social capital. Social capital was also recognised for alleviating tensions arising from the diverse personal backgrounds of healthcare workers, which are characteristic of the heterogeneous societal context in Israel.

The role of the organization management was acknowledged as critical for improving the working conditions of all health-related working groups, especially for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. While some underscored management agency in driving incremental improvement, others identified management as “just another” work group, unable to effectively challenge systemic issues of the Capitalocene. Notwithstanding these differences, the common denominator among all health-related workers is that working conditions improvement initiatives, be they bottom-up or top-down, must include linking social capital characteristics, involving healthcare workers from as many strata as possible.