Care’s Profit

Abstract

Using a layered, ethnographic approach focusing on four small non-corporate private maternity hospitals, we turn a critical lens on what it means to work within this self-regulated bubble and examine the ‘creation’ of a cadre of healthcare workers. Our analysis addresses how a space of care and business is generated out of the precarious positions of both women and the health workers who depend on employment there. Clinic owners’ staffing strategies centred on hiring unlicensed labour room staff, trained on the job rather than in accredited institutes, who take care of all aspects of patient care, including deliveries. By exploring narratives surrounding training and overtreatment, this chapter highlights the tensions between the value placed on profit, care, and working conditions in the private maternal health sector, and examines the structural vulnerability of unlicensed health providers working there.