ethic of care – Ideas in ALL

Social Technologies

Author: Dr Opeyemi Kolawole (Post-doctoral Researcher, PatentInHuman Project)

Medical devices are integral to healthcare service delivery. Patients and healthcare service providers utilise these devices to diagnose, prevent, monitor, alleviate, and restore impaired body functions. Depending on the complexities of these devices and how they are deployed, they can become integrated with the patient’s body, and the patient’s healthy functioning and life may become dependent on the device (for example, an insulin pump or a pacemaker). Yet, like every other device, medical devices are susceptible to wear and tear: embedded software in the device may become obsolete over time, and physical elements may become deficient, making a device unsuitable for the patient’s needs. What options are available to the patient or health service provider in such instances? Should they, or a trusted repairer, be allowed to repair these devices? Patients and hospitals confronted this question at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Social Lives

Author: Pauline Cullen , Associate Professor Department of Sociology Maynooth University

“The majority of healthcare workers are women, and both paid and unpaid caring roles mostly fall to women as well. Then there is the additional challenge of increased pressure on the domestic front,” writes campaign group Covid Women’s Voices, a diverse range of female healthcare workers, teachers, academics, lawyers and others that observe daily the gendered realities of the pandemic. This group echoes calls from feminist organisations including the National Women’s Council that women’s voices are insufficiently heard during the pandemic.

The facts bear out their lived experience. Ireland ranks 101^st in the world for women’s parliamentary representation. Successive and severe lockdowns have closed schools, childcare and supports for older people and those with disabilities for long periods of time placing significant burdens on women. Inconceivably, there are no women on Ireland’s governmental committees on Health and Covid-19.

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