Directed by Lisa Kowalchuk, the project set out to examine how health-care policies in El Salvador and Nicaragua over the past 25 years have affected nurses’ well-being and their capacity to exercise nursing-specific knowledge and skills. A major aim is to compare nurses’ situation across the two countries, as well as between the major sectors of health-care provision within each country. Dramatic shifts of policy orientation in Nicaragua and El Salvador since 1990 afford the opportunity to examine the effects of both neoliberal health-care restructuring and post-neoliberal reforms on nurses’ labour conditions, employment prospects, and remuneration. In addition to these analytical goals, another major intent behind the project is to increase the visibility of Salvadorean and Nicaraguan nurses’ contributions to healthcare. The aim is to raise awareness in the general public, policy-makers, media, and other health-care professionals about what nurses in these two countries actually do– what is expected of them and what they achieve. |
Photography by Jim Gronau
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Website design by Irma Molina