Racism and Healthcare: Representations of the ‘Other’ in Health Services

The healthcare field, renowned to be humanitarian and egalitarian, has for a longtime remained sealed off from sociological studies focusing on racism and discrimination ethics. However, studies illustrate another face where prejudices based on certain origins specific to skin colorreveal themselves. These expressions are present, in part, in care receivers, who refuse to be approached or touched by caregivers of ‘unappealing’ skin colors. They can also be observed in prejudiced and stereotypical representations that healthcare professionals harbor, which then translate into unequal healthcare treatments. These are the realities of health services that we wish investigate here by reviewing various studies conducted in France. Firstly we will evoke the kinds of situations that exemplify the expressions of certain forms of racism present in patients of nursing care. Secondly, we will explain how patients then mimic the racism that health care professionals themselves practice. Keywords: Racism; Healthcare; Representations; Care giving Relationships; Health Service