“It is very easy to call health workers heroes and warriors and valorize them in times of crisis. But it's much harder to actually provide them with systemic investments in improving their working conditions.”
Assistant. Prof. Veena Sriram is jointly appointed with UBC’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (SPPGA) and the School of Population and Public Health. She holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Health Policy, with a particular focus on the health workforce and health sector governance.
Prof. Sriram’s research examines the politics of health policy processes, including the organizations that represent health workers and the advocacy strategies they employ to advance their goals. In her work, she challenges the narrative that strikes and protests are primarily a threat to patients and instead encourages these actions to be understood as a window into the working conditions, grievances, and systemic challenges the workers face.
“The public narrative around the role of health workers is often at odds with the policies that are put in place for them to do their jobs and to do them well,” says Prof. Sriram. “That disconnect is very important for us to address and to narrow so that we can actually have much better health systems, not just during pandemic times, but in normal times as well.”
Learn more about Veena Sriram’s research here.
