For the past couple years I’ve been traveling around North America, doing my best to understand the lived experience of family caregivers, as well as meeting up with all sorts of professionals in care work. It’s the kind of thing I can do now that I’m not serving as a family caregiver.
I’m shifting my focus to care work in Europe for a little while, as I’ll be spending the next few months in Lisbon. Or at least that’s the plan. We all know how often plans come to fruition.
I’ve already gotten a dozen people to explain how the healthcare system works here, which was also one of my favorite questions in the US and Canada. When you understand the real world implications of policies, procedures, and systems, it’s fascinating stuff. The ways people’s explations differ often point to interesting things. It’ll be harder to research here, since my Portuguese is…limited. Thankfully, I’ve come across so many people willing to help out, who I’m so grateful for.
If you know someone I should talk to in Lisbon or an organization in Portugal doing interesting work that supports care workers of any kind, I’d love to hear from you. You can leave a comment through Substack or hit reply and send me an email.
Having been raised in the US and having stayed in Canada just long enough to become a citizen, I’m excited to encounter a European healthcare system.
I’ve heard so many stories where European healthcare is treated as a monolithic utopia or dystopia. It’s different when it’s simply a normal part of your life. I’m hoping to come across things that expand my expectations of what’s possible, like the sabbatical program in Belgium. Especially if, like that one, it’s a discovery made over beers shared with excellent company.
In New York, nursing homes are suing to stop a new law capping profits at 5% and increasing mandatory staff levels. It's fascinating to look at the ways America looks to private companies to provide basic services while holding them to high standards, like Amtrak, the USPS, the MTA, and now nursing homes. We don’t want there to be a profit motive in running essential services. We also don’t trust the government to provide them directly. It’s an interesting conundrum.
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