 From home to hospital and back again: economic restructuring, end of life, and the gendered problems of place-switching health servicesCarolyn Cartier Social Science & Medicine, 2003, vol. 56, issue 11, 2289-2301 Abstract: Economic restructuring in the health services industry in the USA exemplifies general patterns of economic change propelled by neoliberalism, especially industry privatization, diminished social services, and dependence on "flexible" labor and management regimes. Combined with the widespread entry of women into the labor force, an aging population, and minimal assistance for high quality long-term care at the end of life, these economic and social conditions raise a set of difficult policy questions for health services planning. Set in these broad contexts, this paper situates access to and experience of health services in the home, the hospital, and nursing facility, to demonstrate how economic changes have relocated and redefined health services in ways that distinctively impact how people experience the places where they receive care. This place switching of health services externalizes costs of subacute and "daily life care" (the so-called custodial care) to the sphere of the individual, their family, and communities. The theoretical analysis uses current geographical and philosophical approaches to place and space, and considers the tensions between institutionally managed health care space, and the patient's experience of receiving health services in place. The place/space dilemma of health services provision is examined through several interrelated subjects: long-term care at the end of life, gendered characteristics of care giving, the limitations of Medicare and Medicaid, historical changes in hospital length of stay, the restructuring of nursing practices, and the "no-care zone". The analysis is based on examples of stroke and incontinence care to demonstrate the importance of considering place and space issues in health care planning. Keywords: Economic; restructuring; Gender; Health; services; Long-term; care; Place; Space; USA (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:56:y:2003:i:11:p:2289-2301 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from 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 |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.