Nurses and their labor are essential to the provision of health care. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the flagship institution of postwar British welfare, the National Health Service. When it launched in 1948, a shortage of thirty-five thousand nurses endangered its future. This article examines the National Health Service's nursing shortage and its most enduring solution: the recruitment of Caribbean and African nursing staff for struggling British hospitals. It follows the manner in which British civil servants, hospital administrators, and nursing leaders came to recruit nurses from the colonies and the deep ambivalence that marked their project. What began as a reformulated colonial development project gave rise to a sprawling and unregulated market for nursing labor that powered the National Health Service for decades. The so-called dark stranger, deemed unworthy of membership in the national community, in fact carried out its most intimate work—caring for the bodies of sick white citizens.

中文翻译：

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“伙伴关系不是偏见”：1948 年至 1962 年的英国护士、殖民地学生和国家卫生服务局

护士及其劳动对于提供医疗保健至关重要。这一点在战后英国福利的旗舰机构——国民健康服务体系中表现得最为明显。当它在 1948 年推出时，35,000 名护士的短缺危及了它的未来。本文探讨了国家卫生局的护理短缺及其最持久的解决方案：为陷入困境的英国医院招聘加勒比和非洲护理人员。它遵循英国公务员、医院管理人员和护理领导人从殖民地招募护士的方式以及标志着他们项目的深刻矛盾心理。最初是一个重新制定的殖民发展项目，它催生了一个庞大且不受监管的护理劳动力市场，为国家医疗服务体系提供了数十年的动力。