Amid intensifying global crises in healthcare, healthcare workers are facing deep contradictions between institutional demands and the relational, ethical core of their profession due to the intensifying economisation and commodification of healthcare. These dynamics raise important questions about healthcare professionals' agency in shaping their work lives. This article explores resistance among healthcare workers based on empirical studies in Nepal and Romania, where similar and global issues around healthcare work manifest. Drawing on conceptual frameworks of emancipation and resistance, we examine how healthcare professionals respond to systemic pressures in their everyday working environments. Our findings reveal three partly interrelated forms of resistance: (1) protest-collective action for structural change; (2) withdrawal-migration as a means of escape; and (3) change-the creation of alternative practices and institutions. These responses emerge from shared experiences of alienation, devaluation, and a desire for recognition, autonomy, and professional fulfilment. By analysing these expressions of resistance across distinct yet comparable contexts, this study highlights shared experiences and strategies, emphasising the emancipatory potential of healthcare workers and underscoring the value of cross-national perspectives in understanding current negotiations of work in healthcare and its international relevance.
Hartmann et al. (2026) studied this question.