The unbearable lightness of health work: overdemand and invisibility on nursing work in oncologyThis article discusses the production of care, focusing particularly on nursing work. This is a theoretical study, based upon work psychodynamics, using, for illustration, empiric material from a research in an oncology sickroom. We conclude that health work has an intangible dimension - characterized by the workers' creative intelligence and sensitivity - which is definitive for health care quality and can not be measured by formal indicators. Requiring both strength and lightness, health work needs to be sustained, pointing to the importance of management for providing material and psychic support for health work.
Delivery of health care; Nursing care; Hospital care; Health management