Whose public, whose goods? Generations of patients and visions of fairness in Ghanaian health

David Bannister

Social Science & Medicine, 2023, vol. 319, issue C

Abstract: Since Ghana's independence in 1957, the country has seen an ebb and flow of reforms intended to expand and fund state healthcare, informed by diverse notions of affordability and adequate provision. Cycles of attempted health reforms have emerged from disparate political and economic ideologies, themselves a product of broader global histories and specific national experiences. Based on group interviews with people across most administrative regions of Ghana, this paper examines how the formative historical experiences of different generations gives rise to a multiplicity of understandings of what constitutes a ‘fair’ distribution of national health resources. It discusses the forms and contents of arguments that people of different ages raised in both rural and urban settings in the course of the study - with particular reference to the operation of Ghana's current National Health Insurance Scheme, and in light of their perceptions of the justice or injustice of present day healthcare in relation to earlier periods.

Keywords: Ghana; Ethnography; History; Insurance; State healthcare; Fairness; Generational (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953622006992
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:319:y:2023:i:c:s0277953622006992

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115393

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().