O discurso de mulheres-mães que atuaram na UTI COVID-19: como foi ser mãe e trabalhadora da saúde durante a pandemia?

Abstract

This dissertation is composed of two studies that focus on female health workers in the COVID-19 pandemic. The first study aimed, through an integrative literature review, to investigate the contribution of nationally developed research on the multidimensional impact of the pandemic on the lives of health workers based on an integrative review carried out in the Virtual Health Library and in the Portal de Periódicos CAPES/MEC using the descriptors: “working women”; “COVID-19”, selecting 12 articles. As one of the main results, it is highlighted that health workers experienced precariousness and devaluation of work; threat to physical and mental health and power relations between professions have intensified. Health workers also experienced the difficulties of being a woman in the pandemic and some of them had to reconcile motherhood with work. The study demonstrates the pertinence of reflecting on the centralization of care on women, resulting in female overload, in addition to illness and the impacts, both in care/service delivery and in their lives. The second study aimed to understand the discourse of women-mothers who work/worked in the COVID-19 ICU of a university hospital, as health workers in the light of gender issues at work, in motherhood and in society. Female physical/emotional overload, devaluation and dehumanization of health professionals, lack of public policies that ensure maternal well-being, were intensified by the pandemic context, but as we all know, they have been present for a long time. The speeches of the duties found in the study were: caring, (not) feeling, protecting (oneself) and being a hero! It is possible to see that the categories dialogue with each other, in a network of meanings constructed socioculturally and related to what is expected from being a woman, being a mother and a health worker. The discourses triggered by the women-mothers are also a reflection of the naturalization tendency of the discussed phenomena. In view of the above, it is important to reflect on the specificities of women-mothers, not only during the pandemic, to promote care strategies that address their specific needs, in addition to reflecting and questioning the discourses that underlie the experiences of these women, mothers, workers of health, in order to enable the construction of other narratives that consolidate health care with equity.