Blowing the whistle during the first wave of COVID-19: A case study of Quebec nurses.

The experiences of nurses who blew the whistle during the COVID-19 pandemic have exposed gaps and revealed an urgent need to revisit our understanding of whistleblowing. AIM: The aim was to develop a better understanding of whistleblowing during a pandemic by using the experiences and lessons learned of Quebec nurses who blew the whistle during the first wave of COVID-19 as a case study. More specifically, to explore why and how nurses blew the whistle, what types of wrongdoing triggered their decision to do so and how context shaped the whistleblowing process as well as its consequences (including perceived consequences). DESIGN: The study followed a single-case study design with three embedded units of analysis. METHODS: We used content analysis to analyse 83 news stories and 597 forms posted on a whistleblowing online platform. We also conducted 15 semi-structured interviews with nurses and analysed this data using a thematic analysis approach. Finally, we triangulated the findings. RESULTS: We identified five themes across the case study. (1) During the first wave of COVID-19, Quebec nurses experienced a shifting sense of loyalty and relationship to workplace culture. (2) They witnessed exceedingly high numbers of intersecting wrongdoings amplified by mismanagement and long-standing issues. (3) They reported a lack of trust and transparency; thus, a need for external whistleblowing. (4) They used whistleblowing to reclaim their rights (notably, the right to speak) and build collective solidarity. (5) Finally, they saw whistleblowing as an act of moral courage in the face of a system in crisis. Together, these themes elucidate why and how nurse whistleblowing is different in pandemic times. CONCLUSION: Our findings offer a more nuanced understanding of nurse whistleblowing and address important gaps in knowledge. They also highlight the need to rethink external whistleblowing, develop whistleblowing tools and advocate for whistleblowing protection. IMPACT: In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged our foundational understanding of whistleblowing and, as a result, it has limited the usefulness of existing literature on the topic for reasons that will be brought to light in this paper. We believe that studying the uniqueness of whistleblowing during a pandemic can address this gap by describing why and how health care workers blow the whistle during a pandemic and situating this experience within a broader social, political, organizational context.

Biopower under a state of exception: stories of dying and grieving alone during COVID-19 emergency measures.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions for visitors and caregivers in healthcare settings and long-term care (LTC) facilities were enacted in the larger context of public health policies that included physical distancing and shelter-in-place orders. Older persons residing in LTC facilities constituted over half of the mortality statistics across Canada during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the poststructuralist work of Agamben, Foucault and Mbembe we conducted a thematic analysis on news reports. The extracts of media stories presented in our paper suggest that the scholarship on (bio)power and necropolitics is central for understanding the ways the COVID-19 crisis reveals the pragmatic priorities-and the 'health' and political values-that undergird the moral imagination of the public, including the educated classes of advanced Western democracies. Our critical analysis shows that by isolating individuals who were sick, fragile, and biologically and socially vulnerable, undifferentiated population management policies like social distancing, when piled on the structural weakness of health systems, reproduced inequities and risk for those in need of medical care, advocacy, and social companionship in acute moments of illness, death and grief. Considering the unprecedented deployment of governmental power via public health interventions based on social regulation to protect the population during the crisis-how can we understand so much death and suffering among the most vulnerable?