European Journal for Nursing History and Ethics (ENHE)
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“In Germany\u27s Interest”: State Responses to Transnational Nurse Recruitment
Get PDFWest Germany experienced a considerable shortage of nursing staff in the 1960s. One way of countering this was to recruit nurses from abroad, mainly from South Korea, the Philippines and Kerala in Southern India. Recruitment from India was organised primarily by individual clergy, hospital directors and former migrants. Based on archival research, this article reconstructs how the West German state authorities responded to this transnational recruitment. In particular, it analyses the arguments used by the state authorities to justify why they had to respond in a particular way. It shows how they referred – either explicitly or implicitly – to the interests of West Germany, and how the definition of West Germany’s interests differed between the various authorities. It illustrates how development aid entered as an argument, and the impact of the sociopolitical context
Fair Recruitment of Nurses through Voluntary Ethical Codes: Evolution and Discourse
Get PDFThe global migration of nursing professionals has increased significantly in recent years, driven in part by skills shortages in the healthcare sector. Today’s migration infrastructure is far more sophisticated than it was in the 1960s. Labor migration intermediaries (LMIs) are playing an expanding role in labor migration processes, not only in Germany but worldwide. Ensuring ethical recruitment has become increasingly important in international discourse, even though initial frameworks and guidelines were first established in the 1970s by organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Labor Organization (ILO). This article provides a systematic literature review on the discourse and on the role of voluntary ethical codes as regulatory instruments to ensure the fair recruitment of nurses. It identifies three main strands of research: the development and evaluation of such codes, conceptual ambiguities around “ethical recruitment”, and structural and regulatory challenges linked to the role of LMIs. The findings highlight both the historical continuities and the current trends in the migration industry concerning ethical recruitment practices
Introduction: Nursing and Migration: Historical and Ethical Perspectives on Europe from the 1950s to the Present
No full textMigration has shaped nursing care in Europe for many decades. Focusing on Germany in the second half of the twentieth century, but also drawing on other examples from European history, this introductory article explores the current field of research on post-war nursing migration from a historical perspective, establishes social references, and highlights the key ethical issues. We examine the major political, social, and institutional factors and contexts surrounding migration and the work of caregivers from abroad and show how they were perceived by politicians, healthcare professionals, patients, and various audiences, but also include the own experiences of migrant caregivers. We argue that migration, which has long been overlooked in histories of nursing, should be put center stage, and highlight gaps in current research
The Global Regulation of International Nurse Recruitment and Migration. A Historical-Critical Institutional Ethics of Care Enquiry
Get PDFSince the Second World War, international nurse recruitment has become a high-level political matter in spheres of cross-border global governance. This paper traces the global politics-ethics nexus of this development through a focus on two multilateral agreements that regulate such recruitment: the International Labour Organization Nursing Personnel Recommendation (1977) and the World Health Organization Global Code of Practice on the lnternational Recruitment of Health Personnel (2010). Innovating a global historical-critical institutional ethics of care enquiry to frame and structure the analysis, the paper argues that these global-level agreements have been consistently intentionally permissive of the international recruitment of nurses. International organisations and the international community of state and non-state stakeholders have facilitated these global nurse labour dynamics, not despite two major regulatory initiatives but through them. We find that both multilateral agreements mostly meet the standards of a global ethic of care, but do not do so as far as a critical ethic of care is concerned. The weak global institutional framework, the lack of strong connecting mechanisms in the Global Code to national spheres of governance and law, the absence of lateral links to international legal codes in the areas of social and labour policy, and the failure to address historical (including colonial) legacies underpinning the systematic depletion of national nursing workforces in poorer countries present significant challenges in realising the level of nursing workforce sustainability necessary to achieving the health and health-related SDGs
The Role of Fear in the Live-In-Care Discourse. An Ethical Analysis of German Newspapers
Get PDFMigrant live-in care is an essential but controversial part of the care system in Germany and is therefore discussed emotionally in public discourse. While there is already plenty of research on conflicts arising at the micro-level of these care arrangements, the public discourse on live-in care and its emotional dimension has received less scientific attention. The role of fear appears particularly significant as it points to moral assumptions about migrant live-in care. In our contribution, we analyse the communication of fear in the German live-in care discourse in various newspapers between 2017 and 2023, and explore the moral assumptions behind these fears. Two events turn out to be especially relevant: the Covid-19 pandemic and a decision by the Federal Labour Court on payment for on-call times of live-in carers. In both cases, the discourse is replete with predictions of the impending collapse of the care system, which correspond to fears about the future of eldercare in Germany. Fear functions as a moral call to action. Its public communication expresses a perceived lack of political solutions to fundamental problems in (live-in) care
Working in ‘Perfect Harmony’? Overseas Recruitment and Mental Health Nursing in England, 1948–1968
Get PDFIn May 1964, the Daily Express newspaper featured a photograph of nursing staff from 34 different countries at an English mental hospital, standing in a line with their arms linked, together with the matron. According to the feature writer, these nurses lived and worked in ‘perfect harmony’. This article examines the broader issues that this image raises, by analysing international recruitment to mental health nursing in England between 1948 and 1968 and the impact this had on these recruits, their patients and colleagues. It will also discuss the ethical issues that ensued.
When the National Health Service (NHS) was implemented in the UK in 1948, the shortage of nurses, across all specialities, was so severe that its viability was threatened. Although the situation was to subsequently improve in general nursing, it continued to be an issue in what was then known as mental nursing, which experienced severe and ongoing problems in both the recruitment and retention of staff. This article is drawn from a wider study which analysed the strategies that were adopted to ameliorate this situation in England between 1948 and 1968, including the recruitment of mental health nursing students from an increasing number of overseas countries, which will be the focus of this article. The Republic of Ireland had been a major source of nursing labour before 1948, but when recruitment began to be resisted by the Irish government and alarm over poor staffing levels intensified, English mental hospitals moved their recruitment activity to other European countries and to the British Commonwealth
Nursing and Migration
Get PDFThe current issue contains articles on nursing history and nursing ethics relating to nursing and migration, as well as one article each on nursing history and nursing ethics in the Open Section and one article in the Lost and Found section.
Ethical Self-Efficacy as Experienced by Nursing Professionals. : Why It Needs Attention and a Proposal for a Definition.
Get PDFVor dem Hintergrund von inhärenten ethischen Anforderungen an professionelles pflegerisches Handeln gewinntdie Perspektive auf Selbstwirksamkeit und die angestrebte Selbstwirksamkeitserwartung von Pflegefachpersonen zunehmendan Aufmerksamkeit. Ethische Herausforderungen lassen sich auf Ebene des unmittelbaren Handelns undEntscheidens, jedoch ebenso hinsichtlich institutioneller Gegebenheiten wie auch gesamtgesellschaftlicher Rahmenbedingungendiskutieren. Insbesondere im Kontext einer Pflege(ethik)bildung erscheint es sinnvoll, eine spezifischeDefinition der ethischen Selbstwirksamkeit zu generieren. Ziel des Beitrags ist eine begriffliche Ausdifferenzierungdes Konzeptes der ethischen Selbstwirksamkeitserwartung von Pflegefachpersonen sowie eine Klärung, wie diesesdefinitorisch und konzeptuell gefasst werden kann und welche Faktoren die ethische Selbstwirksamkeit bzw. Selbstwirksamkeitserwartungbeeinflussen.The requirement to act ethically is inherent to the professional delivery of nursing care. It is in this context that nursing professionals’ self-efficacy, and their expectation of self-efficacy, are drawing increasing research attention. Discourse on ethical challenges may reference individual actions and decisions, and may also engage with institutional and societal conditions. We recognise the utility, particularly in the context of nursing education generally and ethics education specifically, of setting out a distinct definition of ethical self-efficacy. Accordingly, this article seeks to outline the particular concept of perceived ethical self-efficacy among nursing professionals, alongside detailing the factors that influence experienced or perceived ethical self-efficacy
Nurses’ Memories of Children’s Hospital Care in The Faroe Islands from Early 1960s to Late 1980s
Get PDFInterview data from retired Faroese nurses, along with photos, excerpts from folders, working sheets, and newspaper articles that the nurses brought with them, contributed to this oral history about children’s care in hospital in the Faroe Islands from the early 1960s to the late 1980s. The study period represents decades during which human aspects of the special needs sick children have, such as attachment, closeness, comfort and compassion, were secondary, and hygiene, strict rules and regulations were primary. The children were hospitalized without parents until family-centered care was introduced in 1988. From that point on, parents were allowed to be with their hospitalized sick child at any suitable time. The nurses recalled the ward and the ward sister, their work within a strict hierarchical order, the emphasis on hygiene and quite detailed practical rules and regulations, and how and why they now and then were challenging the rules. The additional data shed light on these memories. The study adds knowledge about Faroese nursing history and gives modern nurses insight into the development of child nursing’s history in a small-scale remote country
How Swiss Solidarity Funding Rebuilt Dutch District Nursing – An Archival Rediscovery
Get PDFImages of the 1953 North Sea flood that affected the coastal areas of the United Kingdom, Belgium, and the Netherlands are etched in many people’s memories. Photographs and film footage brought this disaster vividly to life, making its terrifying scale visible. Iconic images include vast waterscapes with only a single farmhouse or tree remaining, as well as families on rooftops or in small boats as rescue approached. These are all representative of the visual narrative of the North Sea flood.
Among the materials related to district nursing in the collection of the Museum for Nursing in the Netherlands, photographs were found that did not depict the disaster itself, but rather the reconstruction of district buildings that formed the backbone of health care infrastructure in the Dutch province of Zeeland. At first glance, these photographs do not seem emblematic of the flood. On closer inspection and after further research, however, they reveal a surprising reconstruction story. An article in the August 1956 issue of the Groene Kruis’s monthly journal provides additional clarity