Paper Short Abstract:

This paper explores the (im)mobility of general practitioners in Latvia’s rural areas, examining personal motivations, policy incentives, and systemic barriers. Through qualitative interviews, it highlights tensions between aspirations and rural realities, “unwriting” dominant policy narratives and exposing overlooked complexities in healthcare.

Paper Abstract:

Latvia’s healthcare sector faces profound challenges due to workforce shortages among general practitioners (GP), exacerbated by an ageing population, urban primacy, and depopulating rural areas. This presentation explores the (im)mobility of general practitioners in choosing where to practice, focusing on the social, professional, and infrastructural “borders” that influence their decisions. Through qualitative interviews with students, residents, and GPs, we trace the (un)written narratives that shape professional mobility: personal motivations and imaginations of one’s life, policy incentives, and systemic barriers.

In this paper, I argue that while policies attempt to address rural healthcare deficits through financial incentives that compensate the distance to the capital and the depopulation, the narratives shared by interlocutors reveal tensions between their professional and personal desires and the lived realities of rural practice. Therefore, this research asks: who moves to rural areas, and why? Who stays in urban centres, and what factors constrain mobility? By analysing these narratives, I explore the uneven distribution of healthcare resources as a reflection of structural (im)policies that go beyond the health care planning but echo complicated systemic patterns of centre-periphery dynamics.

In this case, writing about the (im)mobility of healthcare workers serves as a form of “unwriting” dominant state and policy narratives, shedding light on overlooked complexities in healthcare delivery. Ultimately, this work highlights the need for policies that address not only material and financial conditions but also the infrastructural, social and emotional landscapes of healthcare labour, particularly in rural regions facing population decline and marginalisation.