Working conditions of social workers at the Military Police Hospital during the pandemic

Abstract

Covid-19 pandemics has brought new ways of sociability at the social work assistants' socio-occupational space, especially for those who are operating at the frontline combat against Covid-19, that is, at hospitals that dispose attendance and at the Intensive Treatment Unit (UTI). Thereby we delimited as general scope the identification of the work conditions of social work assistants at the Hospital of Military Police of RN, considering the current context of Covid-19 pandemics. This research has a social, exploratory nature, with mixed approach; as for its procedures, the research is a case study, to which its techniques were data collecting through a semi-structured questionnaire via Google Forms. The questionnaire was sent to a WhatsApp group of the referred hospital's social work service. The research results showed that, as for the participants' socio-demographic profile, we concluded that a good part of them, 63.6%, is married, and those who belong to the age group of 36 to 40 years-old accounts to 45.5%. Another relevant information is that, as for the number of employment contracts, the majority, 72.7%, possess another job with a salary range of 3 to 5 minimum wages. When asked about the work challenges, 100% of them claimed that it's the fear of getting Covid-19; furthermore, 54.5% mentioned work relationships as a challenge. As for the work conditions, the majority, 72.8%, declared they don't feel valued and get no acknowledgement at work; 81.8% declared they are satisfied with their job at the hospital, but claimed that the work relationships, such as communication and interaction, could be better.