key: cord-0925265-kkdiv65k
authors: Varfolomeeva, Anna
title: Care/punishment dilemma in COVID‐19 hospital treatment
date: 2020-06-11
journal: Soc Anthropol
DOI: 10.1111/1469-8676.12838
sha: a27393b1ca4239accaa65af810946012aa8135b9
doc_id: 925265
cord_uid: kkdiv65k

nan

Care/punishment dilemma in In the Infectious Diseases Hospital of a Siberian city, my colleagues and I are among the first patients with suspected COVID-19. Each of us is placed into an isolated room with greenish walls, basic furniture and a window facing the corridor. It looks like we are simultaneously perceived as vulnerable patients needing care and as potential sources of danger to be kept away and controlled.

The notion of 'docile bodies' constrained through meticulous control and supervision, coined by Foucault (1995) , is often applied to institutions of care. Whereas care is not necessarily associated with warm and pleasant feelings (Puig de la Bellacasa 2017), it is closely linked to asymmetrical power relations (Martin et al. 2015) . We might ask who decides how to exercise care or how patients' reactions to their bodily limitations are managed. These questions become especially relevant amid the COVID-19 outbreak, when many patients are cut off from wider society in medical institutions.

While in the hospital, I experience how my body slowly transforms, responding to prearranged routines. I start to wake up for mandatory temperature measurements at 6 a.m. and become less troubled by the panopticon-style corridor window, which keeps me visible at any time. My body gets used to swabs, blood tests or taking pills. However, due to my unclear status as someone who is suffering and who is dangerous, I am never sure whether I should trust doctors and nurses or remain cautious and alert.

Trust becomes especially challenging as I never see faces, which are hidden behind masks and goggles. While, as patients, we are transparent, the ones who care for us remain unrecognisable. They take a risk when entering our rooms, and we are grateful for their signs of attention and words of encouragement. At the same time, their hidden faces remind us of our human contact deprivation. We find ourselves in the most extreme form of isolation as we cannot be approached without protective gear, touched without gloves or looked at without thick glasses. The border between care and punishment becomes fluid and vague. In Russian public discourse, many of the infected patients are seen as 'responsible' for their illness by 'carelessly' travelling abroad or breaking self-isolation rules.

The number of people hospitalised with COVID-19 is growing, and due to the disease's nature, many of them are isolated. The issues of social exclusion, bodily control or care/punishment dilemma become highly relevant today. Fostered human contact deprivation alongside strict control in hospitals may lead to increased self-condemnation and depression among the ones infected. It may, however, be helpful to nurture self-awareness and patients' sense of responsibility instead. For me, this is a time of extreme loneliness, and yet of extreme unity with the world. I am locked down so that others do not get infected, and our social ties can still be maintained. I believe that it is crucial to treat COVID-19 patients by fuelling their social solidarity, even if physical isolation is unavoidable.

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