Women as service providers in portuguese hospitals in the modern age

Abstract

In this work we propose to analyse women’s performance in Portuguese hospitals of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, highlighting their role as nurses, orderlies, cooks and washerwomen. The analysis of women’s hospital work will permit an understanding of the contractual obligations to which women were subject, the relationships they established with patients, with other employees, and with the governing body, their "qualification" for the position and the management of their demeanour. A charitable, competent and honest profile was required of women; qualities that could determine their inclusion or exclusion from the group of paid employees.