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Restructuring health services - changing contexts and comparative perspectives
Edited by: Kasturi Sen Publisher: London: Zed Books; 2003 Pb ISBN 1 84277 289 9, price UKL 14.95, US$ 22.50 Hb ISBN 1 84277 288 0, price UKL 45, US$ 55
In 2001 the European Commission funded a meeting in Maastricht, the Netherlands, to evaluate experiences of 20 years of privatization in health care services worldwide. This publication brings together the contributions to the meeting from eminent public health academics, doctors, researchers, and policy-makers from different regions of the world that have been particularly affected by restructuring and reorganization of health services. The editor, Cambridge-based (UK) public health scholar Kasturi Sen, has grouped these into three sections: the conceptual and legislative framework, the process of change, and case studies from individual countries.
The findings make discouraging reading. Globalization of business, financial transactions, and profits; fiscal pressure on welfare provision; privatization of infrastructure; the introduction of the market model...