A perpetual process of abjection: An examination of nurses' experiences in caring COVID-19 patients in Wuhan.

ABSTRACT

In this article, I try to document the lived experiences of nurses who were sent to Wuhan to work in the COVID-19 wards and consider the impact of such experiences on their psychological well-being. I show the contextual factors in Wuhan, the inherent nature of nursing during the pandemic and the transition from the immediate reactions of nurses to long-term impacts on their personalities, formed through the whole process of abjection. Therefore, I argue that we need to consider how nursing experiences, before, during and after their professional work in the wards, would instigate abjection within nurses. The abjection of nurses does not start only from the ward, nor does it not end in the ward. Rather, the abjection of nurses, as a reaction to lived experiences, is nuanced and the study of it can reveal rich details of nurses' life both inside and outside of the ward.