Health policy and healthcare work: The COVID-19 pandemic as an event?

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken the world by surprise, disturbing the previous situation affecting countries and the situation of their respective States. “Reality” has been redefined by the pandemic’s serious effects. Argentina is no exception, and the citizenry and the State itself have thus been challenged to take a unique position based on values and to conduct action to deal with the consequences in both the immediate and medium terms. Therefore, the current Essay views the pandemic in terms of an “event”, according to the concept proposed by French philosopher Alain Badiou, and analyzes its implications for individual and collective subjectivation, the values orienting practices, the role of the communications media, and the position taken by the Argentine State; as well as the more specific repercussions on health policy and healthcare work, drawing on other theoretical references from the field. The essay highlights the way “policy” is implemented in the current context: if it fails to mediate in-depth reflection and reorientation of practices, prioritizing the micropolitical sphere, it will result in greater disaggregation and alienation of individual and collective subjects. Thus, the event, more than the pandemic, which is already a fact, should be constituted by the intersubjective articulation of a healthy approach to its consequences, tending towards comprehensiveness and equality in defense of life.